Le FORUM - University of Maine

Le FORUM VOLUME 36 #3 ÉTÉ/SUMMER 2013

http://francolib.francoamerican.org/ and francoamericanarchives.org other pertinent websites to check out -

Les Français d'Amérique/French In AmericaCalendar Photos and Texts from 1985 to 2002

http://www.johnfishersr.net/french_in_america_calendar.html Franco-American Women’s Institute: http://www.fawi.net

The French Connection: http://home.gwi.net/~frenchgen/ $6.00 US

“AFIN D’ÊTRE EN PLEINE POSSESSION DE SES MOYENS”

Sebec Lake, Maine

Le Centre Franco-AméricainUniversité du Maine

Orono, Maine [email protected]

Téléphone: 207-581-FROG (3764)Télécopieur: 207-581-1455

Volume 36, Numéro 3Été/Summer

Éditeur/PublisherYvon A. Labbé

Rédactrice/Gérante/Managing EditorLisa Desjardins Michaud

Mise en page/LayoutLisa Desjardins Michaud

Composition/TypesettingLisa Michaud

Aide TechniqueLisa MichaudYvon Labbé

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Centre Franco-Américain, Orono, Maine Publié 4 fois l’an par le Centre Fran-co-Américain. Le Forum est distribué surtout aux Franco-Américains des États-Unis. Les énoncés, opinions et points de vue formulés dans Le Forum sont ceux des auteurs et ne représentent pas nécessairement les points de vue de l’éditeur ou de la rédactrice, ou de la Division pour l’Éducation Permanente à l’Université du Maine. Le Forum is published 4 times a year by the Franco-American Center. Le Forum is distributed in particular to Franco-Americans in the United States. Statements, opinions and points of view expressed are not necessarily those of the editor, the publishers or the Division of Lifelong Learning or of the University of Maine. Tous les textes soumis doivent parvenir à —Forward all submitted texts to: Lisa D. Michaud, Rédactrice-en-chef/Editor-in-chief, Le Forum, University of Maine, Orono, Maine 04469-5719, U.S., au plus tard quatre semaines précédant le mois de publication—at least four weeks prior to the month of publication. Les lettres de nos lecteurs sont les bienv-enues—Letters to the Editor are welcomed. La reproduction des articles est autorisée sans préavis sauf indication contraire—Our original articles may be reproduced without notice unless otherwise indicated. L’équipe de rédaction souhaite que Le Fo-rum soit un mode d’expression pour vous tous les Franco-Américains et ceux qui s’intéressent à nous. The staff hopes that Le Forum can be a vehicle of expression for you Franco-Americans and those who are interested in us. Le Forum et son staff—Universitaires, gens de la communauté, les étudiants-

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Le ForumSommaire/Contents

Features Letters/Lettres...................................................................................3

L’États du Maine.........................................................................4-17 Soeur Mabel Vaillancourt par Monsieur Harry Rush Jr. Van Buren History by Guy Dubay Americanizing The Acadians by Guy Dubay Une Culture Perdue, Mais Une Acadienne Trouvée par Martha Elliot Whitehouse La Pie Bavarde soumis par Jacqueline Chamberland Blesso From Maine to Thailand by Roger Parent Recollections by Raymond DuvalL’États du Connecticut.............................................................18-24 A List of the Publications of SHFA by Albert Marceau A Museum Exhibit by Albert Marceau Waterbury L'exilé par Alice GélinasBooks/Livres.........................................................................26, 35-37Poetry/Poésie..............................................................................25-27Coin des jeunes................................................................................28Recipes/Recettes.........................................................................29-34Music/Musique...........................................................................44-45

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GENEALOGY & PEDIGREEGeneration 1 You = 100% 1960Generation 2 Parents = 50%; 1/2 1930Generation 3 Grand Parents (4) = 25%; 1/4 1900Generation 4 Great Grand Parents (8) = 12.5%; 1/8 1870Generation 5 Grt. Grt. Grand Parents (16) = 6.25%; 1/16 1840Generation 6 Grt. Grt. Grt. Grand Parents (32) = 3.125%; 1/32 1810Generation 7 Grt. (4) Grand Parents (64) = 1.5625%; 1/64 1780Generation 8 Great (5) Grand Parents (128) = 0.78125%; 1/128 1750Generation 9 Great (6) Grand Parents (256) = 0.390625%;1/256 1720Generation 10 Great (7) Grand Parents (512) = 0.195325%;1/512 1690Generation 11 Great (8) Grand Parents (1024) = 0.09765625%;1/1024 1660Generation 12 Great (9) Grand Parents (2048) = 0.048828625%;1/2048 1630Generation 13 Great (10) Grand Parents (4096) = 0.0244123125%;1/256 1600Membertou & Champlain generation

If I can trace one of my pedigree lines back to Membertou I am 1/4096th Indian. I celebrate my Indian heritage but that ignores 99.975876675% of my pedigree.

In short, I celebrate my Metis 0.024% heritage and history and ignore 99.975% of my pedigree and inheritance.If consanguirnity factors allow me to claim Membertou ten times in the 13th generation pedigree I celebrate 0.24% of

my inheritance and ignore 99.76% of my history and inheritance.It makes sense to claim Indian ancestry from the most recent 5 or 6 generations but beyond that you're ignoring 98 to

99% of historical reality. Persons who seek Indian identity at that distant factor so choose another science other than geneal-ogy upon which to base their Indian claims.

Guy Dubay Madawaska, ME

Dear Le Forum;

I really enjoyed the article "A Maine Franco-American" by Raymond Duval. I am a Vermont Franco-Amer-ican and like him I never felt we were discriminated against. If we were teased, we would reply, "If you're so smart, why can't you speak French?" Sometimes we were mean and we would teach all the bad words to new immigrants from Quebec. The F.... word soon became their favorite adjective. Back then many words that were considered scandalous were just the names of the sacraments.

For years I though "Mot t'a dit!" was a curse word until I read the comics of "Astérix". It is just the old French equivalent for "Word I tell you" or in better English, "I swear". Another one was "taurrieu". A Quebecois told me this meant, "le tort de Dieu", meaning, "It is God's fault". A funny one is "Eh tabarou-ette!" which means, "Your wheelbarrow!" equivalent to "I will bet you 100 bucks!"

To answer some of the other ques-tions, "une fleuve" is a river that flows into the ocean or the sea. "Une rivière" would be a tributary, e.g. "le Richelieu" Concerning the relationship between the French and Frogs, you have to back tot he 16th and 17th centuries. Potable water was as valuable as gold on the high seas when you were dying of thirst. When English ships would accost French ships, they would yell, "Where are the frogs?" The French used to put a live frog in each barrel of water on the ship. If the frog was still alive when they were ready to drink the water, the French knew the

water was potable. It could have been the Jesuits who taught them this since they were the educated of the time.

In finishing, I would like to make two quick observations. "Phono" is a Greek root word that means sound. There-fore, wouldn't a "Francophone" be a per-son who speaks French, even though they do not speak it every day? If you do not speak French, you are not a Francophone.

Parisian French is not standard French because of the guttural "R". "International French" according to my professors at Middlebury College is the French spoken in the Loire Valley.

I really appreciate "Le Forum" and its allowing us the possibility to share our experiences in our Franco-American world. Please continue your great work!

Très amicalement,

Xavier de la PradeProfesseur de frannçais éméritePetaluma, CA

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Soeur Mabel Vaillancourt, R.S.R. (1908-1987)(Soeur Marie de Sainte-Rose)

Par Monsieur Harry Rush, Jr.Millinocket, ME

Soeur Marie de Sainte-Rose de la Congrégation des Soeurs de Notre-Dame du Saint-Rosaire de Rimouski, Québec est née le 18 mars 1908 à Frenchville, Maine. Marie-Mabel était la fille de Joseph Vaillancourt et Agnès (Vaillan-court) Vaillancourt. C'est une famille de huit enfants. Mais Mabel demeurerait "la perle à papa" comme on l'appelait.

La fillette avait commencé la classe, vers cinq ans, à l'école rurale. Le 12 juin 1919, Mabel reçut avec bonheur sa première Hostie et le sa-crement de Confirmation. Elle y avait été préparée par les religieus-es du Saint-Rosaire de Frenchville.

Mais en 1918, son père fut pris d'une maladie de coeur. Après deux ans de soins, sa santé ne se retablissait pas. Il mourut le 30 décembre 1920. Il est mort à 35 ans. Mon Grand-père me dit un jour: "Mabel, je vais te faire instruire pour que tu deviennes une maîtresse d'école." Dans l'automne 1921 j'entrai à la "Mad-awaska Training School". Je n'avais que 16 ans lorsque je graduai en 1924 dit Ma-bel. Mais la Surintendante était si bonne qu'elle me fit enseigner le même mois.

Le 30 octobre 1922, avait lieu le mariage de Madame Vaillancourt et Monsieur Hilaire Pelletier. C'etait une grande joie pour Mabel d'avoir un beau-père et une nouvelle petite soeur en May

Pelletier. En 1933, May voulai devenir une soeur du St-Rosaire. Son nom religieux serait soeur Marie de Ste-Al-berte. En 1936, son frère bien-aimé Rosaire mourut et Monsieur Hilaire Pelletier mourut en 1940 de cancer.

Mabel continue d'enseigner pen-dant 23 ans "sans perdre même une journeé". Pendant la guerre, elle pas-sa ses vacances d'été dans les ma-gasins de Connecticut. À l'été 1948, Mabel se décide à demander son ad-mission à notre noviciat à Rimouski. Soeur M. de Ste-Alberte, qui missionne alors à Millinocket, jubile d'apprendre que ses prières sont enfin exaucées.

À sa prise d'habit, le 2 février 1949, cette soeur recevait avec joie le nom de soeur Marie de Sainte-Rosa, en l'honneur de son unique soeur Rosa. Le 2 février 1951, notre chère soeur fit profession. Après sa profession, elle partit pour Frenchville pour 15 ans. C'était un bien gros sacrifice pour elle quand soeur Marie de Saint-Alberte mourut le 22 juin, 1965. Mabel deman-da-t-elle à May de venir la chercher.

Au mois d'octobre 1966, elle même apprendra du médecin qu'elle est atteinte d'un cancer, son premier mot sera: "C'est soeur Marie de Sainte-Al-berte qui vient me charcher". En sep-tembre 1966 pour la première fois,

elle se vit nommer pour Millinocket.Mais le 4 octobre, elle note: ...Pas

trop forte! Le 7, on fit venir le médecin, et le 10, elle était conduite à l'hôpital pour des examens. L'intervention chirurgicale ont lieu le 25. Le 15 novembre, notre Mère générale put ramener la malade à Rimouski. Elle disait "Je veux garder toute ma souffrance pour Jésus seul". Le 10 décembre 1966, notre soeur eut le bonheur de revoir sa chère maman et reçoit le sacrement des malades. Elle est morte le 7 janvier 1967 avec beaucoup de souffrances. Le 9 janvier, Monsieur l'abbé Charette, curé de Frenchville, chanta le service funèbre et il disait qu'elle était une personne courageuse, pieuse, patiente; elle travaillait dans le plus grande simplicité, humilité patience et charité. Puisse-t-elle reposer en paix!

(Cet article par Monsieur Harry Rush, Jr., Millinocket, ME est un résumé de la biographie de soeur Marie de Sainte-Rosa par les Soeurs de Notre-Dame du Saint-Rosaire de Rimouski, Québec.)

Van Buren Historyby Guy DubayMadawaska, ME

In 1924, my uncles John Albert and Billy Violette farmed their widowed Mother's land on rear lot # 22. In those days farmers sometimes got loans from Hammond Lumber Company so that they could pay the spring planting. The loans would be repaid with lum-ber that came off the wooded portion of the farm. (My cousin Wilmot died

in a lumbering activity on the farm).But 1924 was the year of the Re-

al-estate bubble blow up in Miami, Flor-ida. The housing construction industry through out the east coast stopped buying lumber. Hammond Lumber Company had an over-supply of lumber on its hands. It ceased buying lumber from farmers. The company ran into a serious shortage in its cash-flow. It started to call in its loans. The family farm was foreclosed.

My grandmother moved into town in rented space in the house later owned or occupied by Ben Levasseur on St. Mary's street. When she could not af-

ford the rent she bounced around from relative to relative. I do not remember, but she stay at our home for a short while. after that she went to her brother Paul Deschaines' place where she died.

My uncles left the area and went down state where they could find work as trackmen for Maine Central Railroad. The three of them worked together to save enough money to buy back the farm. Uncle John came back and took up farming again. Uncle Albert re-mained in Lewiston for the rest of his life. Uncle Billy remained in Waterville (Continued on page 5)

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(Continued on page 6)

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where he died. Both lived out their lives with Maine Central Railroad Company.

Potato price subsidies during the war and the price support system of the Soil Bank program kept the farm in the Family through Wilmot and Vinal's day, but Vinal had gone into welding with Construction companies out of state.

I remember John in his eight-ies, still cutting logs on the farm. Our family sometimes went picnicking out there in the Summer when Mom reminisced on her youth. From the top

of the hills we could see six church-es, from St. Leonard, Parent to Sie-gas if not Ste. Anne du Madawaska.

We ran into Uncle John. Mom Asked, "Quoi c'est que tu fait icit?". He replied. "Je t'après faire de la terre neuve". Mom replied, "Voyons-donc, John!" Almost laughing in his face. But it was an old habit, John couldn't break. What does a farmer do in his idle moments? Ils fait de la terre neuve.

I expect, that's what Wilmot was doing. He was twitching a log, but when the log chained behind the trac-tor hit a boulder, and the chain did not break, the tractor flipped right on him.

(Van Buren History continued from page 4)

The last time I was up there I could still see the Cross, marker on the site right off what I think may now be called Settlement Road. I haven't been up there for years now. I have not followed up the history since then. I suppose if I would, I'd find on record at the registry of deeds the farm in the hand of one of Wilmot's sons. We could see that in the Town planning maps. But I've never bothered to look that up either.

"Quoi- ce que tu fait là, John? " "Je fait de la terre neuve". "Bien voyons donc, John! A ton age, Wayons donc!"

AMERICANIZING THE ACADIANSby Guy DubayMadawaska, ME

The Acadians of Maine became

Americans twenty-five years before the Acadians of New Brunswick be-came Canadians - 1842 versus 1867.

We have on record an 1844 census of Van Buren Plantation signed by three Aca-dians, Paul Cire (Cyr), Joseph Cire (Cyr) Bellonie Violet (Violette) as members of the Board of Assesors of that Plantation.

In that record of 81 heads of fam-ilies 37 are of Quebecois/French Cana-dian origin (e.g.:. Levasseur, Devost, Deschenes, Plourde etc.) 5 are Irish/English (e.g. Keegan, Nugent, Farrell, Maley) and 39 are Acadians (e.g.: Vio-lette, Cyr, Cormier Thibodeau , Theriault etc.. Of the 39 Acadian 13 are named Violette (eg. Xavier, Baptiste, Alexan-dre, Louis violette etc.). Bien oui, dans le coin de La Grande-Rivière on disait -ils y en a pluse des Violettes que des mouches). Interestingly in that census Jean Lavoie is listed as John Street.

Of the Board of Assessors all three municipal leaders served in the Maine State Legislature, Joseph Cyr in 1846-1847, Paul Cyr in 1851 and 1859 and Belonie Violette in 1867 the year of Canadian Confederation.

In 1846 Three other Acadians, Regis Daigle, Firmin Cyr and Sylvain Daigle signing as members of the Board

of Assessors of Madawaska Plantation in the name of 116 householders forward-ed a petition addressed to the Right Reverend ---------Fennwick, Bishop of Bangor asking permission to erect a chapel at the present Madawaska/Grand Isle town line (see insert for full text.)

Francis Thibodeau, Esq.cited as cited as Justice of the Peace, would later in 1849 serve as State Repre-sentative, sent a follow up letter to the Bishop of Boston in July 1846 coupling the letter with a deed for the land upon which the chapel got built.

In August 1847 Rt. REv. John Bernard Fitpatrick, successor of Bishop Fenwick visited the St. John Valley. We read in his journal of the trip of his stay at St. BAsile, N.B.: "Mr. Langevain is par-ish priest. He received us most hospitably and we remain at his house two days. DURING THIS TIME THE BISHOP IS CALLED BY PARISHIONERS RESID-ING ON THE AMERICAN SIDE. THEY WISH TO BE DETACHED FROM THE PARISH OF ST. BASILE ON AC-COUNT OF THE DIFFICULTIES OF CROSSING THE RIVER WHICH IS AT CERTAIN SEA-SONS DANGEROUS FROM ICE AND FLOOD. THEY HAVE AL-READY COMMENCED BUILD-ING A CHURCH OF CONSID-ERABLE DIMENSIONS AND HAD AUTHORIZATION OF BISHOP FENWICK. AS THE PARISH IS VERY LARGE AND THE PEOPLE ON THE

BRITISH SIDE ARE SUFFICIENTLY NUMEROUS TO FORM A CONGRE-GATION OF THEMSELVES, THE BISHOP ENCOURAGES THE AMER-ICANS TO CONTINUE AND PROMIS-ES A PRIEST WHEN IT IS POSSIBLE".

Since the three priests of the area, Rev. Antoine Langevin at St. Basile, Rev. Antoine Gosselin at St. Bruno and Rev. Henri Dionne at Ste. Luce had each been assigned here by the Bishop of Quebec., this petition may be regarded as the initial turning point in history where the Acadians shifted from the Quebec church to the American church.

From St. Basile, Bishop Fitpat-rick proceeded to the area which later became Frenchville. He writes: "Sat-urday August 14. Cross the river and proceed by the worst road imaginable to the parish of St. Lucy: Curé Dionne. Where we arrived the workmen were just completing the raising of a frame for a new church of large size. The Bishop made arrangements with Rev. Mr Di-onne concerning the manner of deeding to the Bishop of the church which is now held by Trustees. The new church opposite St. Basile (sic.: Mont-Carmel) is held in shares by subscribers. The ishop in both cases informs the people that the property must be conveyed to him in fee simple: and the condition is acceded to him without any reluctance.

In Volume one at the Northern Aroostook Registry of Deeds we read in part: "Know all men by these presents that we John Garet (Guerrette) of the

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Plantation of Madawaska. county of Aroostook, and State of Maine, yeo-man, Christoher Marquis of Hancock Plantation in said county, yeoman and Hylaire Cyr of parish of Madawaska, County Carlton (Carleton), province of New Brunswick, yeoman, in our capacity as Church Wardens, otherwise called Trusees of the Church o Ste. Luce in consideration of $1000 paid by John Bernard Fiztpatrick, Roman Catholic Bishop fo the Diocese of Boston, the receipt whereof we do acknowledge, do hereby give, grant and convey unto said John Bernard Fitzpatrick, the following described land, to wit: Lot numbered sixty-seven in Township numbered eighteen of the fifth range of towhsips west of the east line of the state...."

The deed also bears the names of Henri Dionne and Louis Cormier as wit-nesses. Cormier who served as the first registrar of deed for Northern Aroostook signed the record as "Justice of thePeace".

Ironically theLand in question had been purchased twenty years earlier by the Rev. Elie-Sylvestre Sirois, Pastor of St. Basile and later deeded by him to the Bishop of Quebec. At page 405 of "Le Rapport de L'Archiviste de La Province de Québec, 1933-1934 we read.; "Mgr. B. C. Panet `M. (Elie-Sylvestre) Sirois, missionaire à Madawaska (Québec 4 Oc. 1828) M. Sirois pourra faire du défriche-ment sur les deux terres de la fabrique. Il faut léguer par testament à Mgr Panet les terres qui ont été données pour y batire des chapelles dans ses missions...."

The note evidences complications arising from the International Boundary dispute affected not only civil matters but impacted on church affairs as well. The Church Wardens or Trustees cited in the 1846 deed of the Ste. Luce property were what in Québec was known as "A Fabrique de la paroisse". The matter here cited would only be resolved in 1876 when Archbishop Taschereau of Quebec deeded all his holdings in Maine to the Bishop of Portland.

Still all the evidence we've cit-ed shows a surprisingly quick adop-tion of the American view on the part of Madawaska territory Acadiens.

To the Right Reverend --------------------Fenniwick--Bishop of Bangor

The petition of the Householders and other inhabitant of Madawaska Plantation in the county of Aroostook.

Humbly shewith. That your petitioners met at a town meeting held on the 10th of April, last convened

for the purpose of addressing the following resolutions there passed to your Lordship.When it was unanimously resolved, that whereas the Church at Saint

Bazil, being situated on the British side of the River Saint John, and that at present it cannot contain more than one half of the members by which half in summer are outside and in winter totally deprived of the blessings of hearing Mass that your petitioners on this side owing to the forming of the Ice in the fall, and the bad state of it in the spring are for weeks incapable of crossing the River, and that too during the latter part of Lent, and at Easter, thus depriving us of performing those duties which our holy Religion enjoins at this season. And that on the event of a war breaking out with Great Britain, they would be almost deprived of spiritual assistance in time of need, the distance of the two Churches on this side to the middle of this plantation being fifteen miles,

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray your Lordships permission to erect a building in this Plantation to obviate the difficulty under which they labour.

Francis Thibodeau, Esquire, has kindly offered gratious a suit-able lot of Land to erect the necessary building which will be required.

We therefore request your Lordship's instruct ions how to proceed, and such further directions as is in your Lordship's judgment will be necessary for the accomplishment of this so long desired ob-ject, an, your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray etc., etc., etc.

for themselves and one Regis Daigle assesorshundred and sixteen Firmin Cirehouseholders Silvain Daigle

Octave Hébert, Town Clerk

N.B. Your Lordship, will be pleased to direct your answer to Francis Thi-bodeau, Esquire, Justice of the Peace.

(Americanizing The Acadians continued from page 5)

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Une Culture Perdue, Mais Une Acadienne TrouvéePar Martha Elliot Whitehouse

Je disais toujours, "Mon grand-père maternel était Français. Il est mort avant que je sois née." Mais je ne disais jamais que ma mère était Française, ou que je suis Française.

Pourquoi pas? Mon grand-père, Henri Doucet,

est né à Petit Rocher, Nouveau Bruns-wick, à côté de la Baie des Chaleurs, en 1883. Je ne sais pas exactement, mais à 20 ans, plus ou moins, il est arrivé dans le Maine en traversant la forêt, un jeune homme immigré clandestinement cherchant le travail et une nouvelle vie pour soi-même. Parce qu'il était im-migré clandestin, il disait toujours qu'il est "né au Massachusetts", un grand mensonge pour éviter la déportation.

Aux États-Unis, Henri Doucet a vite pris le nom anglicisé, "Henry Doucette". Ma mère me disait que son père ne savait ni parler ni écrire anglais quand il s'est marié avec ma grand-mère, d'origine irlandaise, en 1913. La famille Doucette habitait à Mill Street, à Orono, un quartier où on ne parlait pas français. Pour travailler et réussir dans le Maine, c'était nécessaire d'ap-prendre l'anglais. C'est ma grand-mère qui lui a enseigné sa deuxième langue.

Ma mère ne me parlait jamais d'au-cune expérience française dans sa famille d'origine, pas de traditions françaises, pas de fêtes françaises. Et pas de famille française, pas de voisin français, pas d'amis français pour mon grand-père depuis qu'il est arrivé dans le Maine.

Je pense qu'il n'a ja-mais visité French Island à Old Town. En effet, le français n'existait pas dans la famille de ma mère. Son père câchait ses origines

la terre et de la mer. Le jardin plein de légumes, les repas de gibier et de pois-son, et toujours du bon pain maison. Au printemps nous ramassions toujours les fougères comestibles (fiddlehead greens), les pissenlits (dandelion greens) qu'elle sautait dans le gras du porc salé, et les légumes vertes de langue d'oîe (goose tongue greens). Quels bons goûts! En hiver nous mangions souvent des har-icots blancs à la tomate cuits au four, encore avec des morceaux de porc salé, et beaucoup de ragouts au lapin avec des pommes de terre, des carottes et des oignons. Et je ne peux pas oublier la mélasse. Ma mère faisait des biscuits à la mélasse délicieuse! Si nous n'avions pas de biscuits, nous mangions la mélasse sur l'assiette avec le bon pain de ma mère, en-core chaud, pour l'éponger. Fantastique!

Ma mère me disait que sa famille d'origine mangeait cette nourriture parce que c'était la nourriture de l'en-fance de son père. Moi, je pense que j'ai trouvé quelque chose d' acadien de l'enfance de ma mère! Maintenant je dirais que ma mère était Française et

Acadienne, même si elle ne le savait pas. Et je dirais qu'elle était une très, très bonne mère!

pour s'intégrer avec les Américains, mais à quel prix? Cela dit, je com-prends maintenant pourquoi je ne pen-sais jamais que ma mère soit Française.

Grande surprise il y a trois ans! J'ai appris que la famille Doucet était une des 200 familles acadiennes quand j'ai visité le Centre de Recherche Familiale à l'Église de Latter Day Saints à Ban-gor. Avec ma recherche généalogique et beaucoup d'aide des autres avec plus d'expérience que moi dans ces matières, j'ai suivi mes racines acadiennes jusqu'en 1632 quand mon neuvième arrière-grand-père, Germain Doucet, est arrivé à Port Royal en Acadie (Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia). J'ai appris que quelques-uns de la famille Doucet se sont sauvés pendant le Grand Dérangement en se cachant dans les forêts du Nouveau Brunswick avec les Amerindiens comme voisins. Quand j'ai vu les recensements du Nou-veau Brunswick, j'ai trouvé que quatre générations de Doucets vivaient à Petit Rocher, Nouveau Brunswick. Ils y vi-vaient une vie simple et tranquille comme cultivateurs et pêcheurs, où il trouvaient leur nourriture dans la terre et à la mer.

Quand je pense à mon enfance, je me rappelle que ma mère préparait souvent des repas très simples aussi, de

FAIS CE QUE JE DIS, NE FAIS PAS CE QUE JE FAIS.

DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO.

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LA PIE BAVARDEMarie-Anne Gauvin, in this social commentary written in 2000, lampooned the same pharmaceutical-indus-

try pitches that, unfortunately, are still being thrown at us today. Think you've got symptoms? Ask your doctor...!!! À la prochaine... Jacqueline Chamberland Blesso [email protected]

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ÉTÉ/SUMMERPart II

(N.D.L.R. Used with permission. This article first appeared in Echoes, No. 88, April-June 2010, on pages 33-37. See the next issue for Part III.)

FROM MAINE TO THAILANDThe Making of a Peace Corps Volunteer

by Roger Parent

Photos courtesy of the author

ED NOTE: This is the second in a series of excerpts from a memoir written by Lille, Maine, native Roger Parent in 2004, tracing the first 24 years of his life, from his childhood in Acadian French-speaking northern Maine to the end of his service as one of the first Peace Corps volunteers in Thailand.

Mother and Son

From my mother (Blanche) I learned to love reading books and learn-ing. I learned to treasure my French Acadian culture and language, and I learned about God and life. Standing before her day, not taking herself too seriously, and with a steadying sense of humor, she got us ready for school, walked to church for Mass, read the Bible and the newspaper, and to close her day, she led the family in a rosary. This is how she raised her 10 children and endured unrelenting fatigue and illness to age 92.

My mother’s mother (Mémère Corbin) was orphaned early, sent to live with an uncle far away, worked in an old people’s home when very young, and married a lumberjack who spent winters in the Maine woods, and returned home in spring drunk and broke. Through all this, Mémère learned to value schooling. She scratched out enough money by cleaning homes, raising chickens, and selling eggs to see her children through high school–––something like seeing children through college today, or more.

When things were trying for my mother, she talked about her father re-

turning home after a winter’s work in the woods with a barrel of unshelled peanuts and no money. I think she did this to re-mind herself that life was good in spite of difficulties. She remembered without re-sentment, saw through her father’s drunk-enness and guilt the thoughtfulness of the unshelled peanuts, and she saw the good which resided in him side-by-side with his weaknesses, I learned to see this too.

There was no high school in Lille, so my mother was sent to a boarding school run by the Daughters of Wisdom sisters in St. Agathe, Maine, some 30

Blanche Corbin (second from right in front) and her fr iends play on a wagon at the Notre Dame de la Sagesse boarding school in St. Agathe, Maine, in 1924.


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miles away. She went by horse and buggy, came home only once or twice a year, at Christmas for sure and at Easter, maybe. My mother told me she never adjusted to being away from home; she was very lonely and cried most of her first year. The experience was so difficult, maybe traumatic, that she was never comfortable leaving her home in Lille. I think that experience, combined with her deep shyness, made her very reclusive; whenever my father suggested a short trip, 10 or 20 miles from home, she had an anxiety attack.

It strikes me that she did not pass her sense of loneliness or fear of leaving home to me; she never asked me if I was lonely or missed home during my four years of college in Nova Scotia, or when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand. Maybe she felt a respon-sibility to pass on to me and her other children only her strengths, not her weaknesses. If so, she was wise in not wanting to raise copies of herself.

We didn’t have much money, but unlike other families, many who had more money than us, we had some books, magazines, a dictionary and a partial set

of World Books in our home. My mother and her sister, Albertine, had pooled their pennies to buy the full set of World Books when young, and had to break it up when they married and left home. When the

Bangor Daily News and Time Magazine arrived in the mail, we split the newspaper in sections, and read everything avidly. Reading was an integral part of our life.

I think my earliest memory is of my mother reading to me a wonderful book of felted animals, while I sat on her lap. I was no more than 3 or 4 years old, but I remember touching the fuzzy wuzzy grey elephant and the tall giraffe and the striped zebra, loving the feel of it and learning new words. The book, her voice and her warmth communicated love; love of books, love of reading, and love of me. I often fell asleep with that book thinking of her and feeling love.

My mother enjoyed a spirited conversation about religion and God, and didn’t give an inch on her nun-inculcated principles, but she was open to learning, even from her children. Once when I was a teenager, she seemed to me overly worried about something which I thought unimportant, and I told her, “To worry shows lack of faith in God and in the Jesus of the Gospel.” She listened and didn’t comment; she probably felt good I had absorbed some knowledge of the Gospel.

After church service on Sundays,

(From Maine to Thailand continued from page 9)

The Lille portion of the St.John Valley where the Parent family lived.

Blanche Corbin Parent reading next to the china cabinet in their Lille home.

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ÉTÉ/SUMMER(From Maine to Thailand continued from page 10)we had to listen to my mother’s interpre-tation of the homily. We joshed that we had two homilies, one in church and one at home. She as a conservative Cath-olic, but she didn’t always agree with our conservative pastor. She respected him as a man of God, but understood he was human with all the frailties that meant. She didn’t like it that our pastor didn’t live the simple life styled he preached in his homilies, but she never said anything about his big black Buick, or Oldsmobile, or vacation trips.

My mother was a good listener. One time, I think I was 9, it was my turn to go with my father and mother for a ride in our small 1947 Chevy coupe. This didn’t happen often with 10 children vy-ing for their turn. Waiting for my father in the car while he was in a hardware store, where he was whenever he was near one, my mother and I talked, or I should say I talked. I don’t remember what we talked about, but I remember the closeness I felt with her as she lis-tened to what I was saying. My mother couldn’t spare much time for each child, but when I was with her, I felt I was the most important person in the world.

My Father’s Sheetrock Trick

I learned from my father to hit a nail on the head, to saw a board in a straight line, and to visualize a house complete from a hole in the ground. I learned that taking the first step, and not quite knowing the next, was the way to tackle any project, big or small, simple or complicated. Standing by the hole that would be the cellar to a house while chewing over his next move, my father would say, “If we’re going to build this house, we have to start.”

My father Noël, was a master car-penter who built houses. A person who wanted a home would call on him with a rough idea, some pictures, and maga-zine plans. If my father took the job, he would develop architectural plans –––he was a self-taught draftsman–––hire la-borers, electricians and plumbers, and supervise all aspects of the construction.

In rural Maine in the 1950s home

constructions was not a matter of special-ized crews. My father and a few workers laid out the footprint of the house, super-vised the excavation, built the foundation, framed, roofed, shingled, dry-walled, floored, wallpapered, painted, and did the cabinetry. When my brothers and I were old enough to work with him, we had to learn a great variety of skills quickly, for my father was not a very patient teacher.

My father had a reputation as a hard man to work for and he deserved it. He did not believe in compliments; “No need for a compliment if it’s done right, that’s the way it should be.” No matter how near-perfect the cut, or how tight the joint, he would find something to critique, and the work would have to be done over. He was equally hard on himself. He would redo his work on his time when it did not meet his standards.

My father had another side to him, a mischievous and fun side. He loved to challenge his workers. He especially enjoyed playing the “sheet rock closet trick” on them. Almost every house we built had a closet with a small door, 2 feet 6 inches wide by 6 feet 8 inches tall. He would ask one or two of his workers to install a 4-foot by 8-foot panel of sheet rock or gypsum in the closet without cutting the panel, an impossible task since the doorway would not allow that size panel through. And

there could be no joint in the sheet rock.He would say, “It should take

about 15 minutes or so to this job.” They would try every conceivable way to get the 4-foot by 8-foot panel in the closet, with no success. After a while my father would nonchalantly amble into the room and ask, “How are you doing?” They would shake their heads in frustration to this impossible task.

My father would eat his lunch quickly, go in the room when no one was looking, and would install the panel in very little time, showing no joints. Here’s how he did this: he cut the back of the panel with his utility knife, being careful not to perforate the panel’s front paper cover. Then he carefully folded the panel in half, making it small enough to pass in the door opening. Once the panel was inside the closet, he unfolded it and nailed I in place. Voila! No joint! Then my father would show off his work to the workers. They were incredulous. “How did you do this?” He would not tell them his secret right away…maybe he would do so at the end of the project.

My father had a generous and hu-mane side. He led volunteers to build and addition to our elementary school, and to construct a new firehouse. He designed and helped rebuild our burnt-out neigh-bor’s house. One day while working in

Noël Parent in the front yard of his house in Lille, Maine, doing some chores.


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Madawaska, he was asked by a widow if he would teach carpentry to her young son, Albert. She was afraid he would grow up with no skills and get in need-less trouble along the way. My father taught Albert every aspect of his trade. Albert slept in our home many nights.

Albert grew into a master carpen-

ter, became a foreman, and later was an executive of a large construction company in Chicago. It’s in Albert that my father’s reputation for high standards in home construction lives on. I chose another career. My father’s honesty and integrity, his quest for perfection, his ability to see the whole at the outset of a complicated project, and always giving more than what was asked of him, affects my life daily.

One of the first houses Noël Parent built in the early 1930's in the "Parent Settlement" of Lille, Maine. The house belonged to Randolph St. Jean.

One of the later houses built by Noël Parent for Gerald Bélanger of Caribou around 1960.

Noël Parent in 1973 in front of a house he built for Lewis Côté in St. David, Maine.

Roger Parent lives in South Bend, Indiana, where he served as city council-or and mayor in the 1970's and '80's. He is a trustee of the South Bend Commu-nity School Corporation and founder of World Dignity, a non-profit organization focused on educational programs in Thailand, India and South Bend. With a degree in economics from St. Frances Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, in 1961 and a master's in educa-tion from Notre Dame in 1966, he has di-rected volunteer tutoring, neighborhood centers, Peace Corps programs in Haiti and the Caribbean, and development for the Priests of Holy Cross, Indiana Province. In 2004 he wrote The Making of a Peace Corps Volunteer: From Maine to Thailand, and in 2005 he assisted victims of the Dec. 26, 2004 tsunami as deputy director of the Tsunami Volun-teer Center in Khao Lak, Thailand. He and his wife, Rolande (Ouellette), have four children and six grandchildren.

Roger Parent c. 1953 about age 14.

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RecollectionsBy Raymond A Duval

Brunswick, ME

our first visit I remembered the stairs in the back which led to the restroom, but I didn’t recall the stairs leading to a room below. My recollection the stairs ended in a storeroom area. They must have added on since three years ago.

The room had one long table and it accommodated all of us comfortably. The waiter introduced himself as Ra-phael. Lunch was ordered and I believe we all had the ham sandwich. That’s regular ham, not pressed, boiled, or canned, with baguette style bread but-tered with “real” butter with a carafe of house wine. It was just a great setting for our luncheon and we all had enjoyed the atmosphere in a French café style environment. After the meal we had a photo session. Even had Raphael, the waiter, take group pictures. We had Raphael pose with several combinations with the group and finally returned to our waiting bus and the tour continued.

Once we were home and had our pictures developed we notice the pictures we took at the café didn’t include Rapha-el. Raphael had been such an excellent waiter we were kind of disappointed at not having a photo of him. However, the group took many pictures that afternoon and we asked everyone to share photos of Raphael. Guess what, none exists.

Almost out of the “twilight zone” I’ll never forget the “room” down stairs that was not there on our first trip and the waiter, Rapha-el that did not appear in our photos.

Breakfast in Kansas City, MO.; Lunch on Amtrak; Dinner Salt Lake City, UT

In some of our travels, either on conventions or vacations, we some-times invited Connie and George to join

This is a collection of fam-

ily stories as told by the family as well as my own experiences to ar-chive into family lore/history while the memory chips are still working.

Uncle Adolph’s Purchase Let me start with a story my father

liked to tell about the depression days. Around the end of the 1920’s and the be-ginning of the 1930’s, uncle Adolph at that time was rooming with us on Dunning St. (Brunswick) before I was born. Purchases in those days were done with absolute care and careful deliberation. It was an investment made with the meager amount of cash available in the family coffers.

Such a purchase was made by Adolph one day back then as he proudly displayed the overalls he just purchased at Pennell’s to my father. “Wilfred”, he said “These Jeans with two men each holding a pant leg cannot tear this pair of overalls! At Pennell’s, they displayed an ad behind the counter with two mus-cular men tugging at each pant leg with the garment remaining intact.” Intrigued, my father challenged his bother to give his new pair of overalls the ultimate test. Both brothers each grabbed a pant leg and pulled with all their might and rrrrip the pair into two pieces. Outrageous, cried Adolph…absolutely, echoed dad.

Both men immediately marched on to Pennell’s with the two piece overalls. “Look at this” as the two piece garment lay on the counter, “the ad said it couldn’t be done.” Confused and suspicious, the clerk took a fresh pair from the shelf and offered dad to hold one pant leg while he took the other. He was certain these boys were scamming him as he pull on the garment to demonstrate its strength. As dad relates the story, the clerk was on one side of the counter while he was on the other giving the test extra purchase. Rrrrrp, all the way to the belt the garment came apart, and ruining a

second pair of brand new overalls. A third paid was handed to Adolph and the clerk ripped down the overall ad.

Café de L’Opera, Paris, France

On our second trip to Europe in 1985 we were 5 giddy couples looking forward to a good time. The group included Georgette and I, Connie and George, our neighbors Muriel and Paul Fournier, Pete and Bobbie Campeau of Belchertown (cousins) and Marie and Ludger Berube . Our group was tagged “the Canadians” by our tour guide since we all had Franco-American last names. When we arrived in London and met our guide for the initial introductions, the guide had prepared , in advance, money exchange in pounds, francs, ,etc., to get us started in spending our American dol-lars in Europe. The guide pegged us as Canadians and he had to redo the money for each one in our group. Bad start!

It was our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary in 1982 when we had gone on our first trip to Europe, and with that experience, we were designated the group leaders . It was in Paris when I took the role as group leader at lunch time in the vicinity of the Opera House of Paris.

Georgette and I were somewhat familiar with the area since it was a repeat of our first trip. We suggested a small restaurant in the area where we had had lunch and enjoyed a ham sandwich with wine in this charming café with raught iron table and chairs.. Café de L’Opera was on the street behind the Opera House and the Café de la Paix famous sidewalk restaurant in Paris.

The place was busy and as the ten of us entered the waiter asked if our group wouldn’t mind taking a table in a room below the main floor. After polling the group we were in accord and followed the waiter to the back of the café and down the stairs to the lower level. From (Continued on page 14)


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us. They we good travelers and never a problem when I played the “Alpha” roll as tour director. On this particular trip, a controller’s convention I attended for the Times Record, was one of those trips where Connie and George came with us.

The plan after the convention was to take Amtrak from Kansas City to Salt Lake. On that day we were up early to get a head start to the Amtrak depot and get some breakfast. The early was good, however, at the depot it was too early for food. We did find a bar and stool area with a grill in a remote area of the depot and sat down to order. It was serviced by one gentleman of color who didn’t relish to have four people sit at his sta-tion and expect to be served breakfast. Motels with continental breakfast have a better menu than this grill. George started with an order of toasts. “No toast” the black man announced. We ended up with whatever dried donuts that were left over under the glass covered plates.

While we were softening our donuts with the hot coffee another cus-tomer appeared and he apparently was known to the server as the conversation between them indicated. The customer was also of color. “Wha you gonna hav today, Joe?” and Joe “I’d like a toasted cheese sandwich.” ‘One toasted cheese comin right up” Hearing this, George gives me a look I’ll never forget.

We talked about that on the train and had to laugh on the excellent service and breakfast we had to start us off for our Amtrak journey. Lunchtime came none too soon after our donut breakfast of five hours ago. I’m told Amtrak din-ning is staffed by blacks in the area we were in, and normally, we wouldn’t take notice. Today we were famished and our patience had been tested earlier in the morning. Service was extremely slow. Finally came our turn to order. Half hour passes and still waiting. An hour later the meal came minus my order. When I finally got my dinner, minus the wine, everyone else was done eating. The check included the wine we never got. At this point the argument mode was intensified, and the waiter took notice and rectified the tab immediately.

Finally rolled in to Salt Lake City

around 8:00pm, famished! We settled in our motel and headed right to the restaurant. We were the last customers to come in and the place was more than half empty. I was starves and ordered from soup to nuts. Again it seems like the order was taking unusually long to arrive at our table. Finally the order came, soup and salad and meal all at once. That was the last straw. I lid into the poor waitress and had her take the meal back and have it served right.

Not long after my tirade, cry-ing was heard from the kitchen area and we saw the waitress with her hat and coat, leave. Then we had apol-ogies from the owner and finally a good meal, which we could not enjoy.

My Nephews, Paul & Eddie

My sister and her husband, Leo frequently spent a few weeks in Bruns-wick during the summer months when my niece and nephews were growing up. It was such a time when I was in high school that I had just completed my P-38 model airplane kit with a wing span of 36 inches. This model was a WW II plane with three fuselages and a twin tail. It was on a Friday evening when I sat back to admire the finished model which I had been working on for the past several months when mother announce a Fall visitation from RI on the following day.

My workstation for this model was on the back porch on the second floor of our apartment above the bakery which had storm like windows and screens in the summer with plenty of daylight to work from. With mother’s news about the nephews’ arrival, it was a good move to clear the workstation and store the P-38 in the shed attached to the porch over the oven downstairs in the bakery. The boys were pre-teens and not a good idea to leave my hard work just finished P-38 model on site to tempt the boys.

Next day, Saturday, with the model secured in the shed, I left that afternoon for Pickett Field to a Bowdoin football game. The game escapes me now, but not the scene on my return home that afternoon as I opened the door to the stairs leading to our apartment, pieces of balsa wood and with tissue

paper were spewed all over the stairs. This episode has many times

come up in the conversation with the boys who claimed all they wanted to do was to see if it could fly. All I wanted for them to know that it didn’t, and for them to remember that, forever.

Models always fascinated me and later in life I experimented with ship modeling. One such model, The Flying Fish, was on display in a glass case in our TV room when our daughter Monique got married. At the reception at home after the wedding, Paul and Eddie were standing next to the display case when I heard one say “I wonder if this ship would float?”

“La Fil le” Belanger.

Known around town as “la Fille”. né Theodosia Belanger, was a neigh-bor of ours on Dunning Street with a learning disability which required the supervision of an adult. La Fille was allowed to roam the streets, but re-quired someone to care for her at home due to her limited capacity to make proper decisions in difficult situations.

La Fille as known to us in the Franco-American community also be-came known as the “Bottle Lady”. On a daily basis she would be seen pushing her shopping cart in the Mall plucking returnable cans and bottles from trash cans. La Fille was well taken care by Connie, her sister, and the money she earned from these collections would be spent on behalf of her nieces and neph-ews. In 2010, a local playwright wrote a script and produced a play based on his knowledge of La Fille as she was a frequent visitor to the small playhouse on School Street where he was a writer/director. She would go rest in the back of the theater and watch the crews during practice. She would then collect the emp-ty cans of bottles left around by the staff and add those cans to her collection. The play called La Fille was a huge success.

La Fille understood English but communicated only in French. The French she spoke was far removed from the French spoken in Paris. It was a mixture of what we Franco-Ameri-can called “Canuck” which is a grade

(Recollections continued from page 13)

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lower than Canadian French mixed with colloquial use and pronunciation.

La Fille was a visitor and she made her daily rounds to the neighbors she became familiar with. She wouldn’t stay long, and her visits became routine and frequent. Those visits made her susceptible to be taken advantage of. She would run errands to the neigh-borhood store and was sometimes paid but not all payments were in cash.

Our household was one stop on her visitation route and mother always took the time to entertain her. Mother knew it wouldn’t last long and felt like most of the neighbors did that La Fille needed this little bit of attention. “La bout femme” which really should be “La bonne femme” or the good lady, a salu-tation sometimes used instead of “Mad-am” , But used as “Bout femme” is the lowest form of addressing a women. “la boutfamme Turcotte m’envoié ou store (magazin)en commission pi y’a me payer avec un morseau d’chacolat.” The old lady Turcotte sent me to the store for an errand and paid with a piece of chocolate. La Fille was unhappy with her reward be-cause she had discovered that with money she could buy two pieces of chocolate!

On another visit mother got the latest new from the warfront as she re-lated, “les p’tit maudit Japonais prend le diable aujourd’huit. Those god-dam Japanese are taking hell today she told my mother. La Fille would often pick-up on common street talk which became mixed in her dialogue.

A simple soul, la Fille could easily be influenced. Watching a parade was one of her favorite activities when they came to town. She never missed one and would always find her on Maine Street whenever there was a parade in town. Through my mother, La Fille included my aunt Marie-Ange, who lives on Mill Street, on her route and would pay my aunt aa occasional visit. My aunt Ma-rie-Ange had patience like my mother and would listen and politely entertain La Fille for the short time the visit lasted.

Not so patient was uncle Harold’s cousin, from Lewiston né Homidas Harel and Doc for short, who new La Fille from previous visits, was in town.

La Fille dropped it while Doc was busy talking with my aunt. “La fille, il va s’avoire une parade sur la grandrue dans cinq’minute.” Informing La Fille about a parade on main street in five minutes, and out the door she went. On her next visit to my aunt Marie-Ange, La Fille told my aunt “Pour sé maudit parade il vaux pa d’la crotte!” which translate as for his goddam parade they are not worth shit!

Over the years, poor La Fille, she never improved much in her communica-tion skills, but she was accepted by those of us who knew she was harmless, simple and lovable. La Fille passed away in a nursing home in 2010 around the age of 85.

About the Birds and the Bees All societies have had to deal with

“where do babies come from?” frequently asked by children too young to compre-hend how nature reproduces. As this questions surely and routinely come from these adolescents, each culture has its’ own mythology of skirting the issue. Well known in these parts is the old stock story. In the Franco-American neighborhoods it was “les Indien” or “les Sauvage”, both meaning native Americans, and they were the ones who wrapped them up in blankets and left them at the doorsteps.

Sure, that’s how the babies got to the homes, but it didn’t explain to me how they were made. This question always resulted in a void and the issue remained unanswered. Kids can be per-sistent and I was no exception. I recall bringing the issue up, again, when Uncle Joe Belanger was on a visit. Uncle Joe was always quick to give me an answer and I took this opportunity to fire away. My mother frequently would relate how I pinched my fore arm and stretched the skin between my fingers to emphasize “de oû s’qui prendre la paux?” The translation has two meanings. I was ask-ing uncle “where do they get the skin?” but this can also translate as, “Where do they get their nookie?” Man, how close I came to an answer with this question!

How we were dumb to the ways of nature at that age, and how cute for the adults to produce stories like above. It happened again when Leo, my broth-er-in-law, was in the old Brunswick

hospital on the corner of Cumberland and Union Street. Leo had just been operated for appendicitis and along with my mother, father and sister walked in for a visit. We were all seated in Leo’s room visiting when a pregnant woman passed by in the corridor and my eyes bulged out as I saw her go by the open door. Since I was the “baby” of the family, I was not accustomed to seeing a women at full “ceinture”. I was nine years old and still uninformed and seeing her shape, I asked, “What happened to her?” My mother had observed my re-action as the woman-in-waiting walked by, but it was dad that came up with an answer to my question, “à le tombé sur une sourche.” he said in French. Leo exploded in laughter and was literally in stitches holding his side that had re-cently been operated. Translating what my father said, “She fell on a stump.”

Oh the innocence of a child and that brings me to my last dumb question generated from my lips on this subject. Movies can leave impressions on young minds. It certainly did on mine as I recalled the reactions of husbands when the wife announced, “I’m pregnant!” In the movies the husband is always sur-prised and goes wild with excitement.

It was a few months after Leo’s op-eration that I came home from boarding school on a school visit. Mother was pre-pared and carefully observed my reaction to my sister carrying her first child as I entered the kitchen. She was well along with her pregnancy, and the expression on my face mirrored the one mother had seen in the hospital not too long ago.

“Laurence is going to have a baby!” she informed me. Whatever the taught process goes through a child’s mind when perplexed and surprised as in this instance, in this case pro-duced this question. “Does Leo Know?”

The Prince Edward Island Trip

We had the Oldsmobile 88 for the

trip to Prince Edward Island which we bought in late 1980’s. This car had a converted gasoline to diesel engine and loaded with extras including a telephone.




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(Recollections continued from page 15)It was previously owned by Bill Dodge’s mother, the dealership owner with low mileage when I bought this year old olds. It was great on trips because you could go four to five hundred miles before a fill-up.

It was before my retirement and still active at the Times Record that August in 1990 when we asked my in-laws to join us for a trip to the Canadian Maritimes. I had the car serviced and told the garage to check it over carefully for we were leaving for a vacation trip to Prince Edward Island.

My in-laws were good travel-lers and Georgette and I were pleased to include them on this trip that Saturday morning as we took the turnpike, north to Bangor. Now on route one, about four hours into our departure just passed Mil-bridge, the temperature gage light lit up. After looking under the hood, the fan belt was gone. Backtracked to Milbridge and got a new belt and on our way again. Not for long, the warning light on the temp gage came on again. Knowing the next good size community, Machias and hours away, we returned to the service garage that installed the belt in Milbridge.

We’re told by the service man we needed a new alternator. It was ap-parently damage when losing the belt, the fan must have struck the alternator and cause the damage. Tomorrow being Sunday; they would not be able to send a courier to Bangor to get the part until early Monday morning. Luckily this small town had a motel and we settled in for the weekend without transpor-tation. Great way to begin a vacation stuck in the blueberry region of Maine which is nowhere and without wheels.

We reached Moncton , and the next day we visited the Bay of Fundy area without incident. Late in the afternoon we took the ferry from New Brunswick to Prince Edward island. The ferry was loaded with vacationers this hot August day and it occurred to me we would all be looking for lodging once on the Island. We were already in the car when the ramp hit the pier. A tourist information plaza appeared immediately after leaving the pier and like a Chevy Chase movie ev-eryone from the ferry piled into the plaza to make motel accommodations for the

evening. A real zoo, finally I got to a clerk for service and arraigned what I believed to be the last available beds on the island.

When we arrived at our destination we were told they had only cabins left. So without any choice we registered and forked-up $45 each for our reservations. The motel was fairly new, however the cabins looked like they were ready for demolition. Ours had a tilt of at least 15 degrees. We had two bedrooms from the kitchen area and a bathroom with a door we couldn’t close. Windows had makeshift rags for curtains and the bed linen and blankets were thread bare, literally. A grade better than sleeping in the car we rough it out. When we left the next morning we didn’t leave a tip, but father-in-law jammed the bathroom door closed as a reminder.

Spent the day on the island then ferried back to the mainland that evening for a good night’s rest. In Canada the roads were in good shape even for just two lanes. We were heading north to Fredericton at a pretty good clip when the front end of the car started to shimmer. If I reduced the speed down to 50 mph the shimmer would stop. Stopped to check the condition of front tires and discovered the threads were uneven and badly worn.

We arrived at Fredericton safely but lost more time at the garage to have the tires changed and the front end aligned. By then it was Friday and we all agreed to head back home. We chose to go through St Stephen’s border crossing and pick-up route 9 in Calais for Bangor. Before crossing the border I notice the car was getting a bit sluggish. Not long after taking the airline highway as route 9 is known, the diesel engine was acting strange and I was gradually losing power. The big car had difficulty going uphill and knew then the piston compression was fouled. There are no major towns or cities between Calais and Bangor and I held my breath to make it all the way to Bangor. It was the longest 90 miles’ ride of my life as the car crawled along and finally quit about 10 miles out of Bangor.

Had to call for the “hook’ and the wrecker took us to an Old-smobile dealership in Bangor. We rented a car for our return home. A memorable trip, not the way a trip

should go, but more like how it went.The problem with the diesel engine

was it got all plugged up and required a complete cleaning, not an unusual prob-lem with a converted gas engine. The ga-rage also said the engine block had a hair-line crack, but may be alright for the time being. That Fall I traded the Oldsmobile for a Town Car from Jolly John’s Ford dealership in Saco. It wasn’t long after that that Jolly John declared bankruptcy.

My Twenty First Birthday

My friend Al Caron and I had just completed our sophomore year at Portland University. We were both accounting majors and completed a course in business law which was a prerequisite to our major. We learned in that course you attain your legal age of majority the day before your birthday.

On the Fourth of July in 1954 was the day before my twenty first birthday and Al suggested we celebrate with a beer at the Top Hat. In 1954 beer parlors were permitted to open on holidays and the Top Hat happened to be across the street from the family bakery business where I lived.

The Top Hat happened to be owned by my Uncle Harold. Uncle Harold operated with a strict sense of enforcing the legal age of drinking. If you displayed the least amount of baby fat you were carded. At the Top Hat, there was no chance to get served if you were under twenty one. What a better place to test the law than cross the street to Uncle Harold’s beer parlor.

Before we left I grabbed my law book from school for inforcement and marched up the steps to uncle’s bar. We sat down to an empty bar for it was ear-ly morning and business was slow this Fourth of July. Started with small talk before we ordered and I could tell uncle was calculating my age. He knew very well I was born the day after the 4th. My mother had spent that 4th with her sister, my Aunt Marie-Ange who is Harold’s wife, completely exhausted from the sound of fireworks all around town.

“Your birthday is tomor-row, isn’t it?” after we ordered the two drafts. “That’s right, Uncle.”

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17

Dr. Dionne was new in town and was I the process of replacing the aging Dr. Lambert. Doctor Dionne became one of Brunswick’s foremost general practitioner and surgeon who eventually owned and operated the Brunswick Hospital on the corner of Union and Cumberland Streets.

Dr. Dionne did house calls. He treated me at home and quarantined the household when I came down with diphtheria. He came to the house when dad and Leo, my brother-in-law, to treat them for food poisoning from eating crab meat sandwiches. He delivered all my nieces and neph-ews including our daughter, Colette.

After several heart attacks, Dr. Dionne reduced his practice consider-ably. I had opened a chess club at the recreation center on Federal Street when Dr. Dionne joined our club now that he had some spare time. He greatly enjoyed the challenge the game offered and his game was improving rapidly with play.

One evening Dr. Dionne was sitting next to me as we were into a game with our opponents sitting across from us. I had just completed my game when Dr. Dionne challenged me to the next game while his game was still on. I agreed and while waiting I sat watching the progress of his game. Engrossed studying their game, I had not noticed the play had stopped. His opponent motioned me to look towards the doctor, because it appeared like he had dosed off with his head in his left hand and elbow on the table. I gave him a nudge thinking he would wake up , but instead, he keeled over on his side.

We called for rescue, and imme-diately Doctor Fox was on the scene and eventually declared him gone.

Doctor Dionne was first to see me into this world and I was the last to see him go.

He relpied,“I can’t serve you because you’re not twenty-one yet.”

“I become of legal age the day before my birthday!” I explained

“Not at the Top Hat you don’t. I could lose my license if I serve beer to a minor.” And we could see Uncle was getting nervous and fidgeting with a dishtowel while wiping a drinking glass.

“You won’t Uncle because I am now of legal age.” And open my law book to the page he needed to read.

Uncle retrieved his reading glass-es from the cash register and carefully, and I mean carefully read and reread the paragraph explaining the law and how it concerned event surrounding obtaining legal majority. Not quit con-vinced, Uncle jotted down the name and author of the law book and for security in the event an inspector should surface stuff the note under the cash register.

Al and I got served. We clicked glasses as Al said, “Happy Birthday, Ray!”

Chess

Chess is not quite a spectator’s sport, but a game I have always enjoyed. Chess is a game where chance and luck will not be a big factor in the final out-come. What made this game intriguing for me the final results depended solely on your ability to defeat your opponent.

This game is enjoyed and played by a variety of characters. I have met doctors, lawyers, teachers, carnival workers, creeps etc. but all equal over the board as you compete one on one.

Dick Zamore was my chess bud-dy for he and I always got along and played the game for the fun of it. We would spar at the club and at each oth-er’s home to a game of chess with equal

results and perhaps a notch more towards Dick. During my active period with the game, Dick and I had great history.

It was during this active period that Dick and I had entered a rated tournament in Portland when chess was in vogue with Bobby Fisher and Potheads. After just finishing an excruciating round of four and a half hours, I was paired with a fourteen year old. Unknown to me, the boy was being tutored by a professional and was an unrated “ringer” to win my division. Smoking was permitted at the games then and I enjoyed smoking my cigars during the thinking process.

The boy had his dad as a spectator who chewed gum continuously which was annoying to me. Every time I glanced towards the father he would smile and gleam at me snapping the gum rapidly between his teeth. The father would also shake his head in agreement with every move his boy would make and look at me like “what are you going to do now” look. Disgusted, I would puff on my cigar and blow smoke towards the boy. He would react violently by fanning the smoke with his hands and noisily exhale through his nose and mouth. In the end, the boy won the game.

After the round was over, Dick asked how I made out. I said, “I lost to a fourteen year old kid!” and Dick said, “Don’t feel bad, I lost to Je-sus Christ!” Dick was referring to the expert from Wells, Maine area, Gary White, who had a good growth of hair around the mouth and chin.

Dr. Dionne

Dr. Maurice Dionne was the family doctor who delivered me in 1933 at home before Brunswick had a hospital. Mother always said I was one of his first babies.


Il ne faut pas déshabiller Pierre pour habiller Paul.

Don't rob Peter to pay Paul.

(C’est plus amusant en français!)

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Le Forum

A List of the Publications of the SHFABy Albert J. Marceau, Newington, Conn.

Part One – Books and Monographs published by the SHFA

When I was on the board of di-rectors of the Société Historique Fran-co-Américaine (SHFA) in early 2010, I distinctly remember that a prominent member of the board boldly stated at one board meeting that the SHFA should not fulfill the promise of $1,000 made by the previous administration to the Oblates for the publication of the English edition of Richard Santerre’s history, La Paroisse Saint-Jean-Baptiste et les Franco-Amé-ricains de Lowell, Massachusetts, 1868 à 1968 (Editions Lafayette: Manchester, NH, 1993) because the SHFA never published a book. Unfortunately, be-cause of the statement by the prominent member of the board of the SHFA, a majority of the board voted against fund-ing the publication of Santerre’s history.

The suggestion by the prominent member of the board is an error, for the SHFA has published at least seven books, and at least twelve monographs, provided one excludes all the issues of Le Bulletin de la SHFA, and the two issues of Le Cahier de la SHFA, and course, the 878-page book, Les Quarante Ans de la Société Histo-rique Franco-Américaine, 1899-1939.

The seven books that were pub-lished by the SHFA are: Washington et Coulon de Villiers (1906) by Edmond Mallet, 79 pages; La Grande Semaine (1909) by Arthur J. Favreau, 197 pages; La Croisade Franco-Américaine (1938) 500 pages; Washington and the Murder of Jumonville (1943) by Gilbert F. Le-duc, 235 pages; French Contributions to America (1945) by Joseph-Edouard Fecteau, 339 pages; L’Alliance fran-çaise de Lowell, Massachusetts, 1947-1957 (1957) by Antoine Clement, 170 pages; and Akioun’j ou la fleur de lys ne se fane pas : roman historique (1989) by Aharon Ben-Haïm, 213 pages.

historique – vision des fondateurs, visées des continuateurs.” Also in Le Cahier de la SHFA 1990 on pages 136 to 137 is an incomplete list of the books and mono-graphs published by the SHFA from 1899 to 1989. The second source is Pierre Anc-til’s book, A Franco-American Bibliog-raphy: New England, published in 1979. The third source is the website of World Catalog, an on-line catalog of over 50,000 libraries in the world, where I found most of the titles of the monographs.

However, the list does not include books that the SHFA supported financial-ly in cooperation with another historical society. Such a list may be difficult to compile, but the SHFA did partially fund the book La Paroisse Saint-Jean-Baptiste et les Franco-Américains de Lowell, Massachusetts, 1868 à 1968, where one can read on the verso of the title page: “Publication of this work was supported in part by grants from the Lowell His-toric Preservation Committee and La Société Historique Franco-Américaine.”

Therefore, it is clear that the prominent member of the board of the SHFA was in error when he said that the SHFA never published a book.

Part Two – Periodicals of the SHFA

Since the SHFA did regularly print a journal, at least from 1935 to 1939, then 1941 to 1973, and because an en-tire set of the collection is difficult to find, readers of Le Forum should benefit from the following list of periodicals published by the SHFA. Nevertheless, it should be acknowledged that the previ-ously mentioned book of 878 pages, Les Quarante Ans de la Société Historique Franco-Américaine, 1899-1939, was edited by J. Ubalde Paquin, Arthur L. Eno, Antoine Clement, J.T. Benoit and Adrien Verrette, and it was published in 1940 in Manchester, N.H., by the press of L’Avenir National. A library that has the entire collection of the periodicals and Les Quarante Ans is the Emmanuel d’Alzon Library on the campus of As-sumption College in Worcester, Mass.

Concerning Le Bulletin de la Société Historique Franco-Américaine,

The twelve monographs that were published by the SHFA are: French Catholics in the United States (1909) by J.L.K. Laflamme, David E. Lavigne and J. Arthur Favreau, nine pages; The Chinese of the Eastern States (1925), 23 pages; Société historique franco-amé-ricaine: 1899-1929, trentième anniver-saire (1929), eight pages; In Memory of Dr. Joseph-Armand Bedard (1932) by James Geddes, 12 pages; Joseph Arthur Favreau, In Memoriam by James Geddes (1934), eight pages; Le Fait français en Amérique: conférence donnée à Boston le 4 mai 1938 devant la Société historique franco-américaine (1938) by Jean-Marie-Rodrigue Villeneuve, 32 pages; Le Catéchisme d’Histoire Franco-Américaine (1939) by Josaphat Benoit, 57 pages; French Trails in the United States (1940) by Arthur L. Eno, 17 pages; Les Canadien-Français et la Revolution américaine (1949) by Jean-Jacques Lefebvre, 29 pages; Le folklore, patrimone traditionnel (1951) by Luc Lacourciere, 12 pages; Dame Liberté/ Miss Liberty (1985) by Louise Peloquin, 14 pages; and L’Esprit des Lois et la Constitution Américaine /The Spirit of Laws and the American Constitution (1988) by Alain Briottet, 24 pages.

It should be noted that 57-page monograph, Le Catéchisme d’His-toire Franco-Américaine (1939) by Josaphat Benoit, is also an issue of the Bulletin de la Société Historique Franco-Américaine, 1939, volume one.

The list of the books and mono-graphs that were published by the SHFA was taken from three sources. The first source is from Le Cahier de la SHFA 1990, where one can read a brief history about the publications of the SHFA on pages 35-36 from the lecture by Arthur L. Eno Jr., “Les 90 ans de la Société (Continued on page 19)

19

prefix of “Nouvelle Sèrie” began with the issue of the BSHFA 1955, a practice that lasted until of the issue for the year of 1973. In the following list of nineteen issues of the BSHFA of the “Nouvelle Sèrie,” the year of the BSHFA is in ital-ics, followed by the year of printing in parenthesis, then the volume number of the “Nouvelle Sèrie” in a Roman numer-al, and lastly the number of pages for the particular issue. Here is the list of the Nouvelle Sèrie: 1955 (1956) I, 170 pages; 1956 (1957) II, 266 pages; 1957 (1958) III, 420 pages; 1958 (1959) IV, 262 pages; 1959 (1960) V, 285 pages; 1960 (1961) VI, 115 pages; 1961 (1962) VII, 135 pages; 1962 (1963) VIII, 155 pages; 1963 (1964) IX, 142 pages; 1964 (1965) X, 139 pages; 1965 (1966) XI, 135 pages; 1966 (1967) XII, 161 pages; 1967 (1968) XIII, 173 pages; 1968 (1969) XIV, 216 pages; 1969 (1970) XV, 149 pages; 1970 (1971) XVI, 161 pages; 1971 (1972) XVII, 209 pages; 1972 (1973) XVIII, 126 pages; and 1973 (1974) XIX, 144 pages.

The next two journals of the SHFA were labeled as Le Cahier de la SHFA, and both are monographs. The first was published in 1983 with 62 pages, and it has the title: Actes du symposium sur la presse Franco-Américaine et sur Le Travailleur de Wilfrid Beaulieu. The second was published in 1990 with 140 pages, and it has the title: Répertoire des 90 ans d’études et conférences de la Société Histoire Franco-Américaine.

The last issue of the BSHFA was published in October 1994, and although the words “Nouvelle Sèrie” is on the cover, there is no volume number for the issue. Therefore, to follow the earlier citation, the last issue of the BSHFA is simply: 1992-1993 (oct. 1994) 94 pages.

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(BSHFA), the first issue was for the year 1905 and it was published in 1906 as a hard-cover book, and it has 79 pages. The next issue was published 29 years later, in 1935, and it has 21 pages. The issue for 1936 is labeled issues one and two, or “I et II,” and it has 44 pages. There were two issues for 1937, the first of 40 pages, and the second of 36 pages. There were two issues for 1983, the first of 35 pages, and the second of 48 pages. There was only one issue for 1939, with 58 pages. There were no issues for the year 1940, possibly because the officers of the soci-ety were preoccupied with the publication of Les Quarante Ans de la Société His-torique Franco-Américaine, 1899-1939.

The BSHFA was published annual-ly from 1941 to 1943, and the list of the issues only has the year of the volume, followed by the number of pages for the volume. The list is: 1941, 92 pages; 1942, 116 pages; and 1943, 122 pages.

The BSHFA was published bi-an-nually from 1944 to 1950, and the list of the three issues has the years of the vol-ume in italics, the year or even the month and year of publication in parenthesis, and the number of pages of the volume. The list is: 1944 et 1945 (1945) 104 pag-es; 1946 et 1947 (fev. 1949) 104 pages; and 1948 et 1949 (oct 1950) 119 pages.

The next five issues of the BSH-FA were published annually again, and the list of the issues is: 1950 (1951) 118 pages; 1951 (1952) 134 pages; 1952 (1953) 104 pages; 1953 (1954) 87 pages; and 1954 (1955) 111 pages.

The practice of numbering the volumes with Roman numerals and the

In conclusion, after the controver-sial election of officers of the SHFA oc-curred on Sun. Feb. 15, 2009 and before the election of officers on Sun. May 22, 2011, there was some serious talk within the board to publish Le Bulletin de la SHFA again. Such a goal would be a worthy cause, especially since it already is a goal of the SHFA, as stated in the latest bylaws of April 20, 1985, article 2b: “Parmi ses activités, la Société recueille documents, archive et statistiques. Elle publie un bulletin et autorise la parution d’ouvrages sous ses auspices; elle encou-rage les conférences et les concours sur notre histoire et souligne nos principaux anniversaires; elle prête son concours aux autres sociétés historiques.” My translation of the same text is: “Among its activities, the Society collects documents, archives, and statistics. It publishes a journal and authorizes the publication of works under its patronage; it promotes lectures and gatherings on our history and emphasizes our principal anniver-saries; it lends its assistance to other historical societies.” Such a goal should be considered by the board members of the SHFA, especially since their term of office has ended, as stated in Article 8a of the bylaws: “Les officiers et les conseillers sont élus pour un terme de deux ans à la première réunion semi-an-nuelle.” If any of the current officers of the board, as well as any candidates who are willing to run against any of the standing officers, who are serious about fulfilling the goals of the SHFA, should also consider that the SHFA: “publishes a journal and authorizes the publication of works under its patronage…” is truly a promise that should be fulfilled.

(A List of the Publications of the SHFA continued from page 18)

A Museum Exhibit on the Franco-American Community in Waterbury, Conn.

By Albert J. Marceau, Newington, Conn.

The Mattatuck Museum in Wa-terbury, Conn., had an exhibit on the Franco-Americans of Waterbury, entitled “In the Shadows of Saint Anne: The Life of a Changing Community.” The official opening of the exhibit was held on Thurs. June 28, 2012 from 5-7PM,

University of Connecticut at Waterbury.The exhibit was promoted pri-

marily through a two-page article in the Fall 2012 issue of Connecticut Explored by Dr. Ruth Glasser, entitled: “French Canadians Colonize Connecticut.” The article is a fair two-page synopsis of the history of the Franco-Americans in Connecticut, but anyone who has read Gerard Brault’s The French-Canadian Heritage in New England, or Robert Rumilly’s Histoire des Franco-Améric-(Continued on page 20)

and the exhibit was originally scheduled to close on Sun. Oct. 21, 2012, but the museum held it for one more week, so it closed on Sun. Oct. 28, 2012. The primary coordinator of the exhibit was Dr. Ruth Glasser of the Urban and Community Studies Program at the

20 (Continued on page 21)

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Le Forum

ains, especially chapters 17, 19, 40 and 43, will find no major revelations. The quarterly magazine is almost exclusively found in museums in Connecticut, which means that it has a limited distribution, and the Mattatuck Museum did not send a notice to any of the ten Franco-American clubs, nor to the two Franco-American parishes outside of Waterbury, (St. Ann in Bristol and St. Anne/Immaculate Con-ception in Hartford), about the exhibit on Franco-Americans. The means I learned of the exhibit was from a friend, John Stefanczyk of Wolcott, Conn., who told me about it during a conversation after the Tridentine Rite of the Mass, (aka the Missa Extraordinariae Formae), at the Basilica of the Immaculate Con-ception in Waterbury on the evening of Sun. Oct. 14, 2012. He told me that the exhibit was scheduled to close on the following Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012. I later telephoned the museum, and I was told that the exhibit would be extended by one week. I first visited the exhibit on the afternoon of Wed. Oct. 24, 2012, and then again on the afternoon of Sun. Oct. 28, 2012, when Hurricane Sandy began hitting Connecticut as a tropical storm.

The exhibit was in one room of the Mattatuck Museum, near the entrance of the museum itself. The exhibit had ten panels, six display cases, two paintings, numerous photographs, and a ten-min-ute video about the Shrine of St. Anne.

The ten panels were: (1) Orga-nizing a Formal Ethnic Community, (2) French-Canadian Work and Business in Waterbury, (3) The Post World War Two Era, (4) In the Shadows of St. Anne: The Life of a Changing Community, (5) “The Farm Didn’t Work Anymore, the Money was Going Down” Emigration from Canada, (6) “The Chinese of the East” the Reception of French-Canadi-ans in New England, (7) “They Scraped Their Pennies Together” Organizing the Church, (8) “The Church was Part of Our Life and It Was Natural for Us to Go to [the] School,” (9) Modern Reinvention, and (10) This Map Shows both the Legacy and of the Past and Current and Future Projects Taking Place in the South End. What Would YOU like to have in this community?

The important points in the early panels were how the parish was formed and how it developed the Franco-Ameri-can community in Waterbury. The parish itself was preceded by the establishment of the Société St-Jean-Baptiste de Water-bury in 1877. The parish was formed in 1886, as dated by the purchase of the first church building for the parish. Later, two other organizations were formed within the parish, a drum corps, St. Anne’s Drum Corp, was founded in 1904, and a hockey team, St. Anne’s Flying Frenchmen, who were champions in 1936. Along with the parish, there were two local businesses that were established by immigrants from French Canada – the Perreault Auto Springs Service in 1911, and the Dumouchel Paper Company in 1917. An example as to how businesses sup-ported the parish, Perreault Auto Springs was the sponsor of St. Anne’s Flying Frenchmen in their championship year.

The subject of panel six was an examination of the doctrine of La Sur-vivance with two striking quotations from the 1880s from the Bureau of Labor in the States of Massachusetts and Con-necticut. The first quote was from the 12th Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1881: “…they [the French-Canadians] are a horde of industrial invaders, not a stream of stable settlers.” The second quote was nearly identical to the first quote, but from the Report of the Connecticut Bureau of La-bor Statistics, 1885: “They come to earn what money they can for a few years. When they have saved a modest sum they intend to return to their own country. They thus form a distinctly and inten-tionally foreign element in our midst.”

The subject of panel eight was about the establishment of the parish in 1886, and it had photographs of the first, third and sixth pastors. The first pastor was Fr. Joseph William Fones, from 1886 to 1890, and he was a con-vert from Protestantism, who often said: “Although I am not French, my heart is.” The third pastor was Fr. Joseph E. Senesec, from 1900 to his death on April 16, 1906. The sixth pastor was Fr. Francis Croteau, from October 1964 to March 1979. The same panel had a drawing of the first church building of the Franco-American parish, which was

a former Universalist chapel that Fr. Fones purchased in the Spring of 1886.

The pastors who were not photo-graphed in panel eight were: the second, Fr. Joseph Edward Bourret (1890-1900); the fourth, Fr. Ernest A. Lamontagne (1906-1951); the fifth, Fr. Ubald J. Lau-rion (1951-1964); and the seventh and last pastor, Fr. Aurele R. Perreault (March 1979-2000). Afterwards, the parish had two administrators, Fr. Alvin J. LeBlanc (2001-2003) and Fr. Kevin J. Gray (2004-2005). Once St. Anne’s was changed from a church to a shrine, the rectors were Fr. Michel F.X. Hinkley (2006-2011) and Fr. Michael A. Carlson (2011-March 2012). On March 5, 2012, Fr. Jeremiah Murano, Ph.D., Ed.D., became the pas-tor of Blessed Sacrament in Waterbury and the rector of the Shrine of St. Anne.

The subject of panel nine was the change of the Church of St. Anne to St. Anne’s Shrine for All Mothers in 2005 by the Archdiocese of Hartford. On May 27, 2006, Archbishop Henri J. Mansell celebrated a mass at the newly consecrated shrine on the 100th anniver-sary of the laying of the cornerstone of the second and current church build-ing of St. Anne’s, as reported in The Catholic Transcript, “St. Anne’s Parish Marks Church’s Centennial Year” by John Bohuslaw, June 2006, page one.

The objective of panel ten was for people from the local community to interact with the exhibit, and for them to write into a three-ring notebook on how the neighborhood of St. Anne’s Shrine in Waterbury could be improved.

On the table in the center of the exhibit were four binders. The first binder was a three-ring binder that had the same name as the exhibit: “In the Shadow of St. Anne’s: The Life of a Changing Community,” and it contained 23 oral interviews that were conducted by or under the direction of Dr. Ruth Glasser, who used the interviews as the basis of the exhibit. Beneath the title was an explanation of how the interviews were used for the exhibit: “These stories build on the museum’s extensive oral history collection and are among the resources used to tell the whole story of immigration of Waterbury.” The people who were interviewed for the exhibit

(A Museum Exhibit continued from page 19)

21


were: Gus LeBlanc, Roger Bousselius, Ron and Trudy Bouchard, the Desrochers Sisters, Richard Deziel, Rachelle Doyon, Victoria Encarnacion, Sr. Irene Fortier DHS, Rita Frigon, Marc Frigon, Jeanne LaPrade, Rev. Will Roger Malave, Sr. Marie Michaud DHS, Bella Nadeau, The-resa Nardozzi, Andy Normandin, Lillian Dion, Paul Thibault, Marcel Verroneau, Sr. Lorraine Deziel DHS, Sr. Therese Va-nasse DHS, Claudette DeWitt (Hout), and Giselle Bouillard. The second binder was another three-ring binder that contained another collection of about 20 transcribed interviews, with the simple title on the cover: “The South End.” The third binder was a scrap-book of photographs on loan from Doris (Lamay) Murray of Watertown, Conn. The fourth binder was a print-out of a list of veterans, and the title-page was simply: “Parishioners of St. Anne’s Church that [sic] Served in World War II.” There was no author cited under the title. (A list of the veterans from the parish for World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam Conflict can be found on pages 29-30 of Robert Bisaillon’s book, Franco-Amer-ican Biographies of the Greater Water-bury Area.) Also in the same table were brochures for “The Friends of Saint Anne Restoration Project” that began in 2005. Information about the restoration project can be found in the website of the shrine, http://shrineofsaintanneformothers.org/.

The quote from all of the oral interviews that was the basis for the entire exhibit was said by Andy Nor-mandin: “Everybody in the commu-nity lived within the shadows of the church.” The quote was in large print in one of the first panels in the exhibit.

In my short perusal of the binder about the parish on Sun. Oct. 28, I found a good quote from the interview with Gus LeBlanc, who expressed the flow of mi-gration from his hometown of Van Buren, Maine to Connecticut in the 1950s: “They say the biggest city in Maine is Hartford, Connecticut.” Readers of Le Forum who are also members of Catholic Financial Life, (formerly Union St-Jean-Baptiste) likely would know Gus LeBlanc, for he was the head of Counsel No. 304 of

USJB in Waterbury, and in 1980, he was ordained as Deacon Gaspard LeBlanc. Past members of USJB should remember seeing him in the sanctuary at the mass on Franco-American Pride Day, that used to be held on the Sunday after Labor Day at the LaSalette Shrine in Attleboro, Mass.

The ten-minute video was edited by Glenn Berthiaume and it was narrated by Deloris Mahaliak. The video opened with the parish choir singing “Alleluia,” and most of the video was about the religious symbolism on the walls and the stained-glass windows of St. Anne’s Shrine.

There were two paintings in the exhibit. The first painting is entitled “St. Anne’s Church and Rectory,” by Tripp, and it is in the Collection of St. Anne School. The second painting, which appears in the article by Ruth Glasser, is entitled “St. Anne’s Church and Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Waterbury” by Flint, and it is in the Collection of the Ladies of St. Anne Society. There was no further biographical informa-tion about either painter in the exhibit.

There were many photos of fami-lies who emigrated from French Canada and settled in Waterbury. Among these photos were those of the Desrocher Family in Wottonville, Wolfe County, Province of Quebec, Canada, from the 1930s, as well as the wedding portrait of Arthur and Regina Fortier and another photo of the same married couple dated 1941, pictured with twelve of fourteen of their children. Sr. Irene Fortier DHS, who was interviewed for the exhibit, is one of the fourteen children of Arthur and Regina Fortier. Similar photos were of the Hout Family and the wedding portrait of Alphonse and Jeannette Deluge, dated 1928. An object was the wedding dress that Denise Brodeur wore on her wedding day of Aug. 24, 1968 to Roger Brodeur. There was an undated and unidentified black and white photo of a wedding that must have occurred in 1963 or earlier, for there is no free-standing altar in the sanctuary and the priest faces the high al-tar at the back of the sanctuary, an action known as “ad orientem.” Also, the groom and bride are seen kneeling at the altar rail, just outside of the sanctuary, which was standard practice in the Roman Rite of the Mass before November 1963, when

the Novus Ordo Rite was implemented throughout the Roman Catholic Church.

One display case traced the pro-cess of immigration and naturalization of some of the members of the parish, with two sets of naturalization pa-pers, and two Resident Alien’s Border Crossing Identification Cards. One of the objects outside of the display case was a shipping trunk from the Desrocher Family, dated circa 1924.

There were objects from everyday life in the early part of the 20th Century. One was a sewing sampler from Denise Boucher, dated 1917. Another was a Wa-terbury City Directory, and another was a violin from the Collection of Gus LeB-lanc. A fourth was a cookbook produced by members of the Parish of St. Anne.

Among the photographs of every-day life was a photo of Paul Bourassa, the city time-keeper, who was best known for winding the Clock on the Waterbury Green every Sunday morning.

There was a panel on loan pre-sumably from the Franco-American Social Club that has the title “Maires et Maîtresses Franco-Américains” from 1977 to 2011. The said panel is similar to the photographs of the “Franco-American Mayor for a Day” from 1977 to 1992 on page 24 of Robert Bisaillon’s book, Franco-American Biographies of the Greater Waterbury Area. The tradition of the Franco-American Mayor for a Day began on June 24, 1977 with Jeannette Frechette. Paul Bourassa was the sixth Franco-American Mayor for a Day in 1982, and Bisaillon noted in his book that Bourassa learned the trade of watch-mak-ing in Trois-Rivières, Province of Que-bec, a trade that led him to Waterbury in order to work in the New England Watch Co., which later became Timex. Bisaillon himself was the eleventh Fran-co-American Mayor for a Day in 1987.

There were objects in the dis-play cases from the very beginnings of the parish, in particular, objects from the local Société St. Jean Baptiste. One item was the first minute book of the Société St. Jean Baptiste in Waterbury, dated 1877, and another object was a cast-iron embossing stamp for the organization. The stamp itself has an image in the cen-


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Le Forum

ter of a beaver and a maple leaf, and the text in all capital letters around the central image read: “Société St-Jean-Baptiste de Waterbury, CT.” The text that accompa-nied the stamp read that the organization was founded in Waterbury in 1877 by 18 families from Canada, nine years before the establishment of the parish.

There were objects both outside and inside the display cases concerning labor. There were two four-foot-long ice-saws from the Collection of Gus LeBlanc, as well as a pair of ice thongs. The text that accompanied the tools for handling and cutting ice stated that the French-Canadians who came to Water-bury were experienced with the tools, and they filled a need for ice-cutters, a field necessary in the days of ice-boxes and before electric refrigerators, who would cut ice with the saws from local ponds and lakes, such as Lake Quassapaug in Middlebury, which is next to Waterbury. Another object was a lumber hook. There were three tools on display that were used by John Perreault of the Perreault Auto Spring Services that was established in Waterbury in 1911. Among the tools was an anvil, which was used to fashion parts for buggies and some early automobiles, since the business was founded in the era of the change from the horse and buggy to the automobile. Some tools were objects that could be considered to represent life and death, for there was an obstetrics record book from 1900 kept by Dr. Louis Thibault, Sr., as well as a suit coat, a dicky, and a license of oper-ation from the Frignon Funeral Home.

There were objects on display concerning the parochial school. One object was a small bench and desk for the early grammar school children. One of the display cases held two black and white photos of students in the classroom, without dates, a color postcard of St. Anne’s School, as well as two black and white photographs of girls dressed for the Crowning of Mary, and two hymnals in French.

There were five photographs dis-played in a case without captions, except for the dates written on the photos. One photo was of nuns, dated 1909. There

were two photos of girls after their first communion, one dated 1923 and the other undated. The fourth photo was faded and had the caption of the Class of 1947. The fifth photo was of a student musical recital troop, dated June 1950.

One display case was dedicated to the Daughters of Holy Spirit who taught at the parochial school. The case contained two dolls, both dressed in the habits of the order, the first in the habit that the order used from 1706 to 1954, and the other doll dressed in the modified habit of 1954. There was a photo of Sr. Marie Therese Dupuis and Sr. Claudine Duquette standing next to Sen. John F. Kennedy, who campaigned in Waterbury on Sun. Nov. 6, 1960, two days before he was elected President of the United States. (Kennedy gave a speech on the Waterbury Green at that began at three o’clock that Sunday morning to a crowd of 30,000 people, and later the same morning, he went to mass at the Church of the Immaculate Conception which faces the Green, as reported by Keith Schonrock in the Hartford Courant, “Thousands Line Route of Tour,” Mon. Nov. 7, 1960, page one. The said church was later elevated to a minor basilica by Pope Benedict XVI on Feb. 9, 2008.) The display case also contained two photos of Sr. Rachelle Doyon, dated 1959, three photos of three unnamed nuns in three different classrooms, and a text book of French grammar, entitled Venez Voir.

Another case held objects from two pastors and the first permanent deacon of the parish. The first of the two objects from two pastors was the chalice of Fr. Ernest Lamontagne, who was the fourth pastor from 1906 to 1951, and the second object was the biretta of Fr. Ubald Lauri-on, who was the fifth pastor from 1951 to 1964. The object from the first permanent deacon of the parish was the embroidered stole of Deacon LeBlanc, who received it on the day of his ordination in 1980.

One surprising aspect of the exhibit was the absence of any reference or dis-play of any one of the three books written by Robert R. Bisaillon, especially since two of the books are about the Parish of St. Anne. His first book is an index of marriages of the parish, under a title mixed in French and English, Mariages

de la Paroisse St. Anne of Waterbury, Connecticut 1886-1982, published by Editions Bergeron Inc., Montreal, Que-bec in August, 1985. His second book is a history of the parish, entitled Sainte Anne Parish and Its People, Waterbury, Connecticut, 1886-1986, published by Robert R. Bisaillon in 1988. His third and last book is a collection of biographies, entitled Franco-American Biographies of the Greater Waterbury Area, printed by the Waterbury Printing Company in 1993. On the title page of the third book, one can read that it was: “Published on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the Franco-American Social Club of Wa-terbury, 1918-1993.” The Silas Bronson Public Library, the main public library in Waterbury, owns three copies of each of Bisaillon’s books, so the Mattatuck Museum could have made arrangements with the public library to have one set on loan for the four months of the exhibit.

Also, the exhibit did not have any reference to the local cable television show about Franco-Americans that was produced by Robert Bisaillon, which he named “Franco-American Lifestyles,” or “Mode de vie franco-américaine.” Bisaillon cited the show on page five of his third book, where he wrote that it was first broadcast on Waterbury Public Access Television, Channel 13, on Sat. Dec. 31, 1983. The first episode was the “Messe de Minuit,” that was celebrated the previous week at St. Anne’s Church in Waterbury. Bisaillon described the show in his timeline within his third book as: “Still showing program in 1993. French and community interest.” Unfortunately, it is believed that all of the videotapes of the show were destroyed sometime after his death on Tues. Oct. 25, 1994 at the Connecticut Hospice in Branford. His collection of more than 1,000 books on the history and genealogy of French Canada was donated to the Connecticut State Library, and became the Bisaillon Collection. Richard Roberts, who was then Head of the History and Genealogy Unit of the Connecticut State Library, told me directly in 1996 that the will of Robert R. Bisaillon stated only books were to be donated to the said library, with no provisions for video-tapes, or



23

newspapers. (An extensive but not complete list of the books that comprise the Bisaillon Collection was prepared by Richard Roberts in December 1996, and a copy of the list is reprinted in volume seven, issue four, pages 324-332 of the Connecticut Maple Leaf, journal of the French-Canadian Genealogical Society of Connecticut.) In the late 1990s, Dr. Claire Quintal told me that she remem-bered that Robert Bisaillon did make video-tapes of the conferences sponsored by the French Institute at Assumption College in Worcester, Mass., but she did not know what happened to the video-tapes. Since the video-tapes are effectively lost, it is understandable that Dr. Glasser and the Mattatuck Museum did not mention them in the exhibit.

In contrast, there was a refer-ence to the syndicated cable television show produced by the Association Canado-Américaine, named “Bonjour.” Bisaillon noted the show on page five of his third book, and he wrote that he first brought the show to the Waterbury Community Access Television Channel 13 in 1988, and that it was “Still shown in 1993,” the year he published his book.

In conclusion, Dr. Ruth Glasser and the Mattatuck Museum should be com-mended for their exhibit about the Fran-co-American community in Waterbury entitled “In the Shadows of Saint Anne: The Life of a Changing Community.” The exhibit displayed the evolution of the community from its inception in the 1870s, through the decades of growth, to its current state, all told with objects and period photographs. The original and lasting work that was the basis of the exhibit are the oral interviews, which are under the care of Dr. Ruth Glasser at the Urban and Community Studies Program at the University of Connecti-cut at Waterbury, and researchers and historians interested in using them can contact her by telephone (203)-236-9921 or by e-mail, [email protected].


ÉTÉ/SUMMER(Ceci est le neuvième installment de Waterbury L'exilé par

Alice Gélinas. Voir la prochaine édition de Le Forum pour plus.)

Waterbury L'exilépar Alice GélinasWaterbury, CT

CHAPITRE 6

En dépit des fatigues du voyage, nous étions contents d'être revenus avec papa, Armand, Irène et Rosélia.

Les souvenirs que j'avais conservés furent ceux de la rue où nous demeurions, étant jeune. L'école avait été rebâtie. au tmeps de notre enfance, elle était en bois.

Tout avait été prévu pour nous accueillir. Irène et Fernand nous ont hébergés pendant quelques jours, tandis que Rosa et sa famille se sont faits une place chez Armand.

Ils nous avaient déniché un petit deux pieces sur Mill Street. Nos homes se sont trouvés du travail immédi-atement. D’abord, à la boulangerie ensuite, Frisé s’esst place à la U.S. Rubber Company in Naugatuck. C’était un emploi stable. Alex est entré à la Waterbury Company, là où Ralph et Fernand travaillaient. Plus tard, il est entré à la Silver Company in Meriden.

Nous avons refai t connais-sance avec nos amis du temps passé, ainsi que de nombreux cousins.

Notre vie s’est vite amélioré. Nous avons habité des logements plus beaux et plus grands. Je me rap-pelled d’un, en particulier, situé sur la Pond Street, un cinq pieces, avec des fenêtres chaque bord et un grand perron.

La paie était bonne, compare aux emplois incertains qui avaient été notre lot jusque là…En plus, les magasins, ban-ques étaient à notre portée. Je descendais dans lebas de la ville pour visiter ma fa-mille, et le trajet se faisait aisément à pied. Nous vivions près de l’école et de l’église.

Chez Rosa ont occupé, pour un temps, le logement que nous avions habité, étant jeune. Celui dans le-quel, notre mere avait vécu. Ça faisait étrange de se retrouver après tant d’an-nées dans le meme logis qu’autrefois.

Cependant, celui qu’elle a aimé le

plus, s’est trouvé sur la rue West Clay. Tant qu’à Irène, elle a toujour été bien logéem car Fernand et son frère avaient leur proplre triplex sur la West Clay.

Armand et Laurette habitaient sur la rue Jewelry, et leurs trois garcons: Jacques, Roger et André allaient à l’école Ste-Anne. Charlie, Ralph et Michael: les fils de Rosélia fréquetaient aussi cette école, de sorte que notre fille avait beaucoup de cousins qui l’eentouraient.

Rosélia et Ralph s'étaient achetés un triplex sur la South Main Street, là où leurs trois garçons grandissaient. Ils avaient perdu un quatrième fils qui avait vécu quatre jours. Nous avions tous été au cimetière, et ce fut une grande tristesse pour toute la famille, et pout les parents: le coeur brisé. Il est enterré au Calvary Cemetery.

Papa travaillait comme aide-sac-ristain. Nous allions lui rendre visite presque chaque soir.

Tous les matins, Rosa et moi, nous allions faire now emplettes au magasin d'Elzéar et Cécile Descôteaux. Nous apportions une tarte pour le dessert.

J'aimais me sentir responsable de la marche de la maisonnée. Être une épouse et une mère était l'affaire la plus importante pour moi. La vie prenait tout son sens.

Tout était parfait! J'avais un frigidaire, un poêle à gaz, le téléphone!

Le plaisir de ternir un ménage, de préparer à manger pour les autres, de coudre les vêtements de Nicole, de remplir le thermos de Frisé, afin qu'il puisse manger la même chose que nous, aux trois repas, c'était plaisant!

À l'heure de son retour à la maison, j'avais fait couler l'eau pour son bain, en vérifiant la bonne température. Des serviettes propres étaient bien placées, en attendant qu'il puisse s'en servir.

Lorsqu'il était sur l'autre chiffre, je lui préparais une bonne soupe qu'il mangeait en lisant son journal à onze heures.

Je lui coupais les cheveux moi-même. Je le dorlotais. En passant près de lui, je lui donnais un petit bec sur la joue. (Suite page 24)

24

Le Forum

Avant qu'il parte pour l'ouvrage, j'aimais qu'il me serre dans ses bras. Je n'en de-mandais pas davantage. Avoir autour de moi, les êtres que j'adorais, me procurait un sentiment de satisfaction intense.

Je mettais des petites notes dans sa boîte à lunch:

L'amour commence par un baiserIl finit par un bébé

ou bienL'espoir est une étoileDans le ciel de la nuit

Je ressentais l'amour que nous avions l'un pour l'autre, et tous les deux, nous chérissions Nicole.

À mille petits faits, comme se prendre la main, ou bien avoir ma jambe contre la sienne, entrelacés, étaient pour moi des instants précieux. Je garde le souvenir de ces beaux jours: ma tête in-clinée sur son épaule, récitant une prière.

Quoiqu'il puisse arriver, cette im-age resterait à jamais gravée dans mon coeur.

Ce fut au tour d'Émile et Gertrude de plier bagages et de venir nous rejoin-dre. Ils avaient obtenu leurs visas.

Nous leur avons trouvé un loge-ment et son ménage arriva par camion. Leur fille, Lise, fut inscrite à l'école avec les autres.

Émile travailla à la Waterbury Company pour un certain temps et lorsque papa a pris sa retraite, il le rem-plaça à l'église Ste-Anne. Notre église, où beaucoup de Gélinas sont allés prier, avait une grande importance pour nous. On y allait pour les neuvaines, les neuf premiers vendredi du mois, les chemins de croix, etc.

Rosélia et Ralph ont contribué pour un bon montant, pour défrayer les réparations.

Je suis retournée au moins trois fois à New-Bedford, Massachusetts, avec Irène, Rosa et Émile, là où maman avait vécu. Nous étions curieux de revoir la place où grand-père Alphonse Lavergne aimait voir arriver les bateaux.

La Dernière fois que j'y suis allée, c'était bien changé. Toute la rue, où maman avait demeureé, n'existait plus et il n'y avait plus l'usine de COTON où elle

avait travaillé. Tout était remplacé par des bâtisses neuves et la rue principale était devenue une Plaza.

Maman ne se serait pas reconnue. J'ai regardé dans l'annuaire téléphonique pour voir ce qui nous restait de parenté par là. La veuve d'Oscar Lavergne, frère de Ligouri, était encore là. Les autre sousins de ma mère étaient retournés à St-Paul du Minnesota U.S.A., et leurs de-scendants dans l'Ouest South Dakota,etc.

Nous devenions des Gillinasse (Gélinas), Irène: une Libronne (Lebrun) et Rosa: une Languewine (Langvin). Pourtant les noms, c'est beau en français.

Aux Fêtes, nous reprenions les traditions canadiennes françaises. On se regroupait pour manger now pâtées à la viande, plottes (plat régional: viande en-robée de pâte, et déposée dans un ragoût de pattes de cochon), etc. On jouait aux cartes, on prenait un verre. C'était le fun. Papa, son chapeau sur le bord de la tête, entonnait une chanson. Il aimait encore conter des histoires drôles pour faire rire le monde. Émile et Armand chantaient à leur tour. Ils avaient un beau timbre de voix. Frisé faisait sa part en chantant sa chanson, toujours la même. Il buvait un peu trop, mais tant que notre loyer était payé et que nous n'étions privés de rien...

Papa a vécu chez Rosélia, chez Rosa et aussi chez moi. Pour se sentir à l'aise, il tenait à nous donner un montant de sa pension de vieillesse.

La nuit, alors que tout était calme et tranquille, j'entendais Nicole lui dire: "Chante, Pépère, chante une chanson,

j'aime ça, même si tu chantes mal!"Le matin, j'exigeais qu'elle termine

son déjeuner, mais elle rechignait, alors papa l'aidait à finir son assiette.

Papa aimait tous ses petits-enfants, mais il avait un faible pour les enfants de Rosélia: Charlie, Ralph et plus tard, Michael. Il les promenait partout.

Un jour, Nicole, les fills de Rosa et celles d'Émile lui ont dérobé les bonbons qu'il gardait en réserve pour les enfants de Rosélia. Elles ont mangé tout le sac de bonbons pour ensuite, les remplacer par des "beans". C'était pour jouer un tour, car il avait du bonbon pour tous ses petits-enfants.

Frisé s'était trouvé un deuxième emploi, afin de s'acheter une auto. Le jour où il arriva avec sa Chevrolet à deux portes, il était tout fier. Chez Rosa et Émile ont eu, eux aussi leur auto.

Nous allions en pique-nique toutes les familles ensemble. Les enfants étaient fous de joie. Nous allions à Lake Quassy, Lake Compound, Black Rock, mais notre endroit préféré était Momaguine: une plage près de l'océan New-Heaven.

Papa était avec nous partout où nous allions.

Richard et Rita Beaulieu, Hervé et Anne Lebrun, Freddy et Valéda Bard, madame Lebrun venaient avec nous et ça virait en un gros party sur la plage.

Denise, la fille d'Irène, était malade en auto, mais elle venait. Papa la prenait sur ses genoux tout le long du voyage. Elle était bien spéciale pour lui. Il l'ap-pelait sa petite fille à deux couleurs, parce que la couleur de ses cheveux était un mélage de doré et de roux.

Nous avions du plaisir, mais le soleil m'a toujours incommodée. Même sous un parasol, Irène et moi, l'air salée de la mer nous brûlait.

Rose avait maintenant trois en-fants: Lise, Hélène et Marcel. Bébé Marcel avait douze ans de différence avec sa soeur Hélène.

(Waterbury L'exilé suite de page 23)Photo prise à New BedfordDebout: DézolinaAssis: Reebecca, AlphonsineÀ genoux: Angéline

25

The Joys of JuneBy Virginia WhiteDove Sand

(27 May 2013)

Ah, tell me how soonWill arrive month of June,When Luna moth leaves cocoon,As we celebrate solstice moonIn northern sky at noon.

Please tell me JuneJust how soon I can be maroonedOn island and lagoonDuring all summer moon.

Thanks to June,We hear the tuneOf Common Lune.

Summer Solstice brings us longest day of the year,Telling us that summer’s officially here.Bringing us more daylight to gazeOver fields of purple-pink lupine ablaze.

Thanks to June,In the afternoon,Comes last day of school,That’s so cool!Let’s jump in the poolAnd forget the rules!

The Kool-Aid standsThat appear so grandStart to dot the streetsWith colorful sheets.

In the fields, sweet strawberries ripening,As children anticipate s’mores and camping.

White sails flash off Cranberry Isle,Bringing all a favorable smile.

High winds at Eggemoggin Reach,Bring kite flying on sandy beach.Fire up the outdoor grillsFor hamburgers, hotdogs, and thrills!

Swimsuits and sandals make their debut,And the clothes we need wear are now few.Tee shirts and shorts are here to stayFor another summer of outdoor play.

Clearly the joys of June are many,An open door to a season of plenty.

Images have been blocked for your safety and privacy. Click here to display them.

Vol. 32 # 1 & 2 • PRINTEMPS/ÉTÉ

POÉSIE/POETRYLes Joies du Juin

Par Virginie ColombeBlanche SAND

Ah, dit-moi quandLe mois de juin arrivera,Dès que la mite de Luna part le cocon,Comme nous célébrons la lune de solsticeDans le ciel du nord à midi.

S’il vous plaît, dit-moi JuinJuste quandJe peux être abandonnéeSur l’île et la lagunePendant toute la lune d’été.

Grâce à juin,Nous entendons les chansonsDu plongeon huard.

Le solstice d’été nous apporte le jour le plus long de l’an,En nous disant que l’été est officiellement ici,En nous apportant plus de la lumière du jour à regarder fixementSur les champs de lupine violet-rose en feu.

Grâce à juin,De l’après-midi,Vient le dernier jour d’école,Ca c’est si « cool ! »Sautons dans la piscineEt oublions les règles !

Les stands de « Kool-Aid »Qui apparaissent si grandsCommencent à parsemer les ruesAvec les draps colorés.

Dans les champs, les fraises sucrées mûrissant,Comme les enfants anticipent « s’mores » et le camping.

Les voiles blanches clignotent de l’Île Canneberge,En apportant à tous un sourire favorable.

Les hauts vents à la Portée d’Eggemoggin,Apportent le cerf-volant qui vole sur la plage de sable.Enflammez dehors les grilladesPour les hamburgers, les hot-dogs, et les plaisanteries!

Les maillots de bain et les sandales font leur début,Et les vêtements que nous devons porter sont maintenant moins.Les tee-shirts et les shorts sont ici de resterPour un autre été en récréation extérieure.

Clairement, les joies de juin sont beaucoup,Une porte ouverte à une saison d’abondance.

ÉTÉ/SUMMER

26

Le Forum

Tutoyer 1On the way outmerde she wouldsay, my grandmother—

German—in French.But why merdeI would ask—

merde I wouldthink—why for me?—I was only

eight but I knewwhy for me . . . .But not merde,

she would say,merde pour merde pour

toi, “it’s good luck,” bonne chance, to be

ready (witch’s alchemy), to read (your charm)

dazzling merde into merde, if ever you only

learn how.

2Unready before

POÉSIE/POETRY an ellipsis—but strictly, on tethers, I cannot hear what you say—today I enjoyed every instantyou told me that that is not good enough—Je ne sais pas.

3Tais-toi?

My mother speaks French and I don’t.

She genders my langueAnglaise en Français.

La mer et ma merde—mais avec le soleil,

rhymed correspondancesous réalité, sur réalisation,

le réalisme, ma rébellion,mais ne pas rebattre, me

réassurer mais sans monrébus—ne pas rebuter—

ma mère arriveavec le soleil—

pas pour moila langue des anges

—mon angoissesi tu plais—

tu me tue maisavec tel plaisir.

––– by Tony Brinkley

BOOKS/LIVRES...NEW BOOK: Poetry of Wabanaki

Country: Down East Maine

Written and illustrated by Virginia WhiteDove Sand

If Le FORUM readers order a copy of Poetry of Wabanaki Country: Down East Maine, all proceeds will go to help fund Le FORUM. Simply enclose a check to Le FORUM in the amount of $10.00, with your request for a copy of the book, Poetry of Wabanaki Country: Down East Maine. Remember to provide your mailing address. Also indicate if you would like the author to sign the book.

Contact: Virginia Sand Email: [email protected]

CHEZ FRANCOIS is about the struggles of a hardy French-Canadian family from Quebec, to Manchester, NH, to Bristol, CT, covering from 1919 to 1969. Laugh, cry, and wonder at P’Tit Cuun and his brother “Mer’s escapades,” while their mother Exilia fears the work of the devil in her kids. And what is eventually the meaning of success for Francois? What are the “Good Old Days?”

To Order: CHEZ FRANCOIS, by Joe Simoneau

$14.45, P & H $3, 288 [email protected]

3 Apple Dr., Townsend, MA 01465 978-597-6589 (Leave Message)

27

When the Dead Speak . . .A petition not heard

from the French Canadians and Franco-Americans buried in St. Stephen’s Cemetery in answer to the headline reading “St. Stephen’s Church in Attle-boro set for demolition.” Sadly, despite vigorous protests from the living, St. Stephen’s was demolished on May 3, 2013. There are over 200 French-Ca-nadians/Franco-Americans buried in St. Stephen’s Cemetery—here are a few names. How many do you recognize? Allard, Bienvenue, Charron, Doucette, Fournier, Gagnon, Lambert, Neveu, Pariseau, Proulx, Rainville, St. Germain, Tremblay, Viens. If they, and the others interred with them, could speak, what might they say?

The dead speak quietly.No one askedfor their opinion.They give it nonetheless.Names carved on graveyard stonescreate a formidable petition.Their mute testimonyand beloved church record their lives. Here are the ties,the links from old to new.Here two countries joinin hearts and minds.These silent witnessesprotest the violation of their historyand desecration of their legacy.

Margaret S. Langford

In February 2013, a group of regional historic preservationists signed Stephen Lindsey’s letter to the Attleboro Sun Chronicle “Give St. Stephen’s Church” {a} reprieve for {a} possible move.” Subsequently, the signatories faxed, called, and wrote letters to the Fall River diocese. The Sun Chronicle provided continuous coverage until the very end.

Margaret S. Langford is professor emerita of French and Franco-Amer-ican Studies (Keene State College). An independent scholar and researcher on Franco-American issues, she resides in Keene, New Hampshire.

ÉTÉ/SUMMER

POÉSIE/POETRY

BOOKS/LIVRES...

Le Forum

28

(Sudoku answers)

Coin des jeunes...

1 7 5 3 8 9 2 4 6 4 3 6 5 2 1 7 8 9 2 9 8 4 7 6 1 3 5 3 5 2 9 1 4 6 7 8 9 6 7 8 5 2 4 1 38 4 1 6 3 7 5 9 27 8 3 1 6 5 9 2 45 2 9 7 4 3 8 6 16 1 4 2 9 8 3 5 7

2 9 5 77 8

8 3 1 6 2

3 5 2 1 6 8

8 1 3 5 9 2

9 7 6 1 3 6 1

1 7 8 9

Un papillon à colorier

“ Fill in the grid so that every row, every column, and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9. “

There’s no math involved. The grid has num-bers, but nothing has to add up to anything else.

You solve the puzzle with reasoning and logic.

It ’s fun. It ’s challenging . It ’s addictive!

29

RECIPES/RECETTES

(Sudoku answers)

The title of this blog comes from my mother and her appreciation of someone who was “a good eater.” My mother loved to feed people, and one of the most insulting things you could do was not be a good eater at her table. To her, it felt like a slap in the face if you halfheartedly picked at the food she cooked. Conversely, nothing made her happier than to cook for someone who ate with gusto. If you asked for seconds, well, then you had won her heart. We associate this obsession with feeding people to certain ethnic groups, and Franco-Americans mothers can take their place beside Jewish, Italian, and Chinese mothers who like nothing better than having good eaters at their tables.

I would not call A Good Eater a Franco-American blog. Instead, it is a blog written by a Franco-American. In other words, being Franco-American is the place where I start rather than my destination. Yet, part of what I want to do with this blog is to show how a life lived close to home, a life that revolves around food, family, and friends, is a rich and rewarding life. “Livin’ the good life,” as Ida LeClair (aka Susan Poulin) might say. And if that isn’t Franco-American, then I don’t know what is."

Laurie Meunier Graves

ÉTÉ/SUMMER

http://www.agoodeater.com/

30

Le Forum

RECIPES/RECETTES

Pawpaw-French Cooking. Food ways of Missouri’s Créoles.Par Kent Beaulne dit "Bone" habitant et Créole de Missouri

Missouri-French Créole cooking is not the haute cuisine of Paris, the spicy Cajun flavors of basse Louisiane, nor the more subdued flavors of Eastern Canada. Neither is it the sustenance “hillbilly” cooking of wild game, corn pones, and dry salt pork one imagines about the Ozark Mountains. The Creoles and Cana-dians, who settled haute Louisiane, in the Missouri lands between the St Francois Mountains of the Ozark Chain and the Mississippi River, developed a style of cooking that is French and Canadian in origin. They also borrowed from basse Louisiane, their major commercial and trading partner, as well as some good stuff from their Anglo-American neigh-bors of the post Louisiana Purchase.

Although suspicious of outsiders, the Creoles of Washington (pronounced Warshington) County, also called the Pawpaw French or simply Pawpaws, were very hospitable to neighbors, fam-ily, and friends of family. One of the first things heard when folks stopped by for une visite, was and still is, “Who’s your friend? Are you thirsty? Want to eat?” It was food etiquette to decline the first or second time so it didn’t look like you stopped by to eat, even if you did. But you had better accept on the third offer or you might leave hunger or sober.

“My grandfather Theodule ‘Tode’ Villmer, had a habit of inviting anyone off the road (Rt 21) which ran in front of our house, to come and eat. He’d say ‘Come see how poor we live’. Of course my grandmother, Mary Ellen (Boyer-Villmer) was the one who did all the cooking and cleaning up. She also milked a cow and dug tiff (barite) to help supplement the family income.”

[Natalie Villmer, Old Mines]

La Kizine – The Kitchen In the early days of the colony

during the French, Spanish and American regimes, food was cooked outside and in fireplaces. Some homes had separate summer kitchens to keep from heating up the house during the oppressive heat of Missouri summers. After the railroad came through in the 1850s, the cast iron stove was more easily available to the common folks. In a Jan, 1949 St Louis Globe- Democrat interview, Akan (Eti-enne) Roussin, a native of Richwoods, claims that his home at Morrelton had the first cooking stove in the Meramec River valley. This would have been just after the civil war, and would have revolutionized cooking in the home.

The typical Pawpaw kitchen of the 1950s and 60s was still fairly simple, especially in the log and frame “company houses” owned by the Tiff Mining Com-panies. Not having been built with elec-tricity, there were “adjusted”. A single, ceramic, light bulb socket was installed in the ceiling of la kizine. Then a plastic light bulb socket with outlets was then screwed into the ceramic one. Extension cords were plugged into the device and ran across the ceiling and down the wall where they would terminate at a table or shelf, where a clock, toaster, waffle iron, and clothes iron would be plugged into it. There were no counter tops or built-in cabinets like today. An extra table or the popular Hoosier cabinet, with its’ built in flour bin and sifter and pull out enam-eled work top was perfect for mixing and rolling out les gateau (biscuit) and dumpling dough. In some homes metal cabinets had been screwed to the wall or a six foot tall metal pantry or can cupboard stood on the floor. There were more than likely several ten and five gallon crock-ery jars that were used at various times for making beer, sour kraut, or pickles.

Many kitchens still had the wood cook stove. Some were the old cast iron

Croxiolles

models with the white, grey, green, pink, or yellow enamel oven doors, with a water reservoir and warming shelf, and probably inherited. The modern wood cook stove with its’ sleek lines, all in white enamel, didn’t look a whole lot different from the propane gas stove that might be next to it. In summer the gas stove was used a cloth covered the wood burning one, turning it into another table. In earlier times, the wood stove was moved onto the porch or set up in the bou-canière (smokehouse) to keep from heat-ing up the house. Giving up the ancient wood cook stove entirely was like stick-ing an older relative in an old-folks home, and the Creoles were loath to do either.

“I don’t like cooking beans or fried potatoes on that gas stove. It just doesn’t cook them like the wood stove does.” [Ida Portell, Bottom Diggings]

L e g G a t e a u x – B i s c u i t sExplaining the American biscuit

to Europeans and others who think it is a cookie can be a task, especially if hav-ing to do it en francais as well. I heard a Scotchman in St Louis upon trying one, remark, “oh it’s like a scone!” It is a baking powder and flour creation. Yes I know that in standard French, gateau is a cake, also a baking powder and flour creation. The Creoles must have co-opted this bread, from their Anglo- American neighbors after the 1803 invasion. They call cake, la galette.

Back when I was a pup, both sets of grandparents still lived in log houses without running water. I remember well sleeping in the attic and hearing the morning ritual of building fires with the clang of the metal stove doors and chairs scooting around on the wood floors.

There was the smell of bacon and eggs cooking in iron skillets, they (Continued on page 31)

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raised themselves. Making les gateaux seemed complicated, but they did it every morning, and had it down to an art. They made enough in the morning for dinner and supper as well. Everyone had a five gallon metal can that lard had been sold in. They cooked everything in lard, the best flavor ever especially if it came from your own pigs. They would pop off the lid, scoop out flour into a large crock bowl and mix the dough, which was then rolled out on a floured table top. Stored in the flour can was un goblet (drinking glass) which was used to cut out the round biscuits. They put a little lard in a hot iron skillet, set in the biscuits smearing them around a bit, flipped them over greasing both sides.

“ We u s e d t o e a t g a t e a u x three times a day; we didn’t know w h a t s l i c e d l i g h t b re a d w a s ”

[Marie Portell-Robart. Fountain Farm]

“ S o m e t i m e s M o m m a d e a flahn as a change of pace from the gateaux. It’s just a flat-bread made with baking powders, instead of yeast.” [Betty Portell-Bone, DeSoto]

Du Pain Maï – Corn Bread Biscuits may have been the main-

stay, but cornbread ran a close second. There was of course the debate between the yellow or white meal factions. Corn-bread was best baked in an iron skillet, seasoned with a little lard and some sugar or sorghum added to make a brown crust. An alternative to making a cornbread in the oven was to make corn cakes, fried in a skillet on top the stove. The relatives were incredulous when I told them I had found histories from the 1700s stating the ancestors didn’t eat du pain maï. Here is a passage from the heretical document: le mai est pour les negres et les bêtes. Corn is for negroes (slaves) and cattle. How opinions have changed in two centuries.

So what does one do with stale bis-cuits and corn bread? Throw it out? Non. You make a slop. A slop in this case is not for the hogs. You simply crumble the stale stuff into milk or coffee to make a mush.

“Granma Degonia made these

bulls-head biscuits. You would take your butter and work it into some of that food old blackstrap molasses with you fork. Then you take a piece of the bulls head biscuit and pull it across your plate towards your mouth.”

[Wayne Koch, Happy Holler]

broth, sometimes referred to as “chicken sweat”. Having a bouillon is the simplest of parties and not to be construed as a sign of poverty or a form of “penitence”. Often though, the bouillon turned into a feast. The idea of “settin-up” all night was a way to pass the long dark periods of winter in the days before electricity with lights, radio, television, or one could “après rôder” in the pick up truck.

“I tell you dis, my boy. Af-ter six or five days of going to bed at 5:30 and sleeping ten hours, we were ready to “set up” all night for a change.” [Roy Paco Boyer, Racolla]

“Oh they used to have bals all winter long. That’s all they did was have bals. They’d start around New Years’ with their Gui-o-nee Bal and have a couple a week at different peoples’ houses until the last one at Mardzi Grah.” (Mardi Gras) [Torie Portell-Bone, Shibboleth]

If company just showed up, which was perfectly acceptable, or the event had been planned for a while, a couple of hens would be butchered and boiled in a grosse marmite. If lots of compa-ny arrived, the furniture in the “front room” of the miners’ cabane would be pushed against the walls or set outside on the gallitte, (gallerie) so they could dance. Others would be in la Kizine, cooking, telling stories and folktales called contes. They might be playing cards probably Pitch or Euchre. A lot of people could be packed into two 16 by 16 foot rooms, lots more spilling out onto the porch or around a fire in the yard.

In the late 1800s the soda cracker made by the National Biscuit Company was available at stores around the coun-try. With this innovation, the bouillon could be thickened with crumbled crack-ers. Lots of pepper was added. Guests would bring les cornichons (pickles), les betteraves (picled beets), les tartes (pies) et les galléttes (cakes). And there would be la bière, du vin et le whiskey. For the Creoles, bringing a side dish to a bouillon or barbecue is a common rit-ual. So is taking home the ever popular “go plate”. “Fix you a plate to go, you, for your grandma or your old man.”

The bouillon hen was always home

ÉTÉ/SUMMER(Pawpaw-French Cooking continued from page 30)

Whole Korn being cooked after soaked in lye overnight to make Du Gru. We couldn't find any whole white corn at the feed store so we bawt yellow. Miss Many canned it. In the old days they would let it dry out and crack it.

Les Fêves et Jambon – Beans and Ham

The staple of Creoles and les Amer-icains by the mid-19th century was beans.

By mid-winter when the canned stuff ran out and before garden produce came in in early summer, they ate beans. Beans for dejeuner, feves pour dinner, et feves pour souper. When they had it, they cooked them with ham and ognions . Du gru was often cooked with the beans. Du gru was dried cracked hom-iny. White cracked corn was soaked in lye, causing the skins to come off. It was rinsed and then dried out for storage.

La Bouillon – House Party- Le Bal“I’m having a bouillon the second

Saturday of January. You folks should come over.” These words, or “Je vas avoir un bouillon le deuxième Samedi du Janvier. Vous autres a besoin de venir. » could be heard in 1960, 1860, or 1760. So what is a bouillon? Well a bouillon is a cold weather house party. It derives from the French, bouillir, to boil. For the Pawpaws, bouillon is also chicken

cx

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Le Forum

raised and near the end of her egg laying career. A quirk to the event was to bor-row a hen from some one else. The idea of stealing a friends or neighbors hen even if the host had dozens, was well entrenched in the culture. Besides the fact that stolen hens taste better, I was also a test of one’s survival skills. An unforgivable faux pas of Creole society is to not invite the injured party, who so gra-ciously donated meat. Stealing chickens at any other time was considered a crime and the thief could get his butt kicked.

“We were having a bouillon at the house and I had my pies set on the steps that went upstairs. Well, some men who didn’t get invited started shooting at the house. Everybody was looking for cover and Mrs. Boyer decided to run upstairs and she stepped in my pies. I was so mad.” [Torie Bone, Shibboleth]

Probably the quintessential meal was Chicken and dumplings. Probably an adaption from their American neighbors, it soon became as French as the bouillon.

My grandma Ida Portell told me that in the old days they used to make a different type dumpling. Instead of the flat squares, these were small squiggly ones. Kind of like homemade noodles. These are the same type the Germans at Ste Genevieve make for their famous liver dumplins. It is possible the French borrowed these from their German neighbors as well.

Even with the original isolation from each other, the French, Germans and Americans of the early 19th century who didn’t mix well socially, weren’t above borrowing the good stuff, in-cluding fiddle tunes, from each other.

L e s D e s e r t s – D e s s e r t s“Granma Politte (Lucy Cole-

man-Politte) used to make these pies that had crust tops that she could lift up out of the pans without them coming apart and then she’d stack them and they wouldn’t stick together. They used lard in their crusts back then. They would make apple, peach, lemon, blackberry and vinegar pies. She also made these sugar cookies that would just melt in your mouth.” [Betty Bone]

“Mom (Mary Pashia) made these boo-yee pahtay (bouillée paté), which was vanilla bouillee layered with pie crust. [Pap Pashia, Rabbitville]

“French heritage to some means getting together once a year at the fes-tival, but for the Paco Boyers it means a lot more. Lizzie Paco was my great grandma, and she is where the story begins. Aunt Cyrilla always reminds us it is time to get together and make grandma’s donuts, as om called them, so with rolling pin and favorite knife in hand, away I go to the host’s house. Arriving to see my aunts, sisters, cousins, and the next generations ready to put in a full day of stories, food, and making of the old family recipe reminds me of what French heritage is all about.” [Cheryl Juliette-Boyer, Brown Holler]

Le Chandeleur – Candlemas“You kids come home straight

after school tonight; we’re having pancakes and sausage. It’s groundhog Day” [Betty Portell-Bone, DeSoto]

We always had pancakes and sau-sages on that day, Feb 2. The grownups said we would get the seven-year-itch if we didn’t. I found out later that meant seven years of hard times, not actually scratching from hives. It seems that eating crêpes, or pancakes (fat crêpes) is well entrenched tradition with the French in North America and parts of France. While living in Pont Breaux Louisiana in 1984 I found out that some of the Cajuns practice that custom as well.

Fifteen years later, while sitting in my kizine, drinking ma tasse du café, I saw on the Catholic Calendar that Groundhog day was also the Christian Candlemas. Well that was enough. Now I had to find our why we were eating pancakes on Candlemas and what it was. After a lot of research on the subject I learned that the day is the feast of Notre Dame de la Chandeleur.

“It is amazing to consider the many generations of Mississippi Val-ley French folks, separated by great distances of time and space, all com-pelled by tradition to eat crêpes, year after year, on the same day-all confident they had done their part to maintain proper order in the universe.” [C. Ray Brassieur in Expressions of French Identity in the Mid-Mississippi Valley. University of Missouri, Columbia.]

(Pawpaw-French Cooking continued from page 31)

“Another pie they used to make was with a layer of Rhubarb, then a crust, a layer of strawberries, then a crust.” [Charlie Missey, Old Mines]

Croxiolles, croxignoles, cro-

quignoles, are a non- yeast pastry made in winter around the holidays. The dough is rolled out and cut into rectangles, then scored to make slits. The three sections

Eli Robart, making cracklings Les Gortons.

are pulled inside each other, tucked and twisted, then dropped in grease. They come out twisted and golden brown. You can eat them like that, with sugar or glaze poured on them. The only way to learn how to make them is to apprentice oneself to a professional.

Les Gortons, Pork skins being rendered to make lard. The cracklings are a by product of this. The lard is then used for cooking and making soap.

33

“Well we still make crêpes, not pancakes on Ground hog day”

[ C y r i l l a B o y e r , R a c o l l a ]

Le Four a Pain-Clay Bread Oven“Your gonna build what. It will

never work.” That is what most people said when Members of the Brigade a Renault made that announcement as part of their historic site. Having previously seen it done at Fort de Chartres and on the Isle d’Orléans, I knew it could be done. Even though there had been no four a pain in the region in over a century we were determined to bring them back. Anyway we had experience mud daubing the spac-es between our log houses with the same bouzillage needed to build the ovens. It turned out that building them was the easy part. Learning to bake in them was a bit more difficult. The Pawpaw women had never stopped baking bread, so we only had to merge the two technologies. The trick was to get and keep the oven around 400 degrees, until the bread was ready. After burning a few batches and having some come out doughy, we perfected it.

Twenty eight years and thousands of loaves later, people come from miles around to La Fete a Renault, at St Joa-chim church, or Moses Austin Heritage Festival at nearby Potosi, to buy du bon pain. “That’s not French bread, it’s not a baguette” something we hear once in a while. “No these are French boules I tell them. Meaning balls, root of the French word for baker, boulangère”. Then I show them a copy of Smithsonian mag-azine, and a story done on that subject. Turns out the baguette was introduced to Paris by the Austrian ambassador, in the late 1800s, a Johnny-come-lately.

L a C h a s s e - H u n t i n gIn the years before hunting season

were imposed in the 1930s, there weren’t many door or turkey left in Missouri, but there were squirrels, rabbits, possum, and raccoons. Rabbits could be hunt-ed with dogs or trapped in homemade box traps. Fried and then simmered in gravy was a feast. With squirrels they would cook them with the heads

on then pop open the thin skull with a spoon and fish out the brains like they were eating caviar at St Petersburg.

Then we have le rat de bois, liter-ally “wood rat”, a not quite so cute little critter known by most as the possum. Dressin’ a possum was done differently than other fur bearers. Instead of skin-

rience with where our food comes from. “We always fried squirrels and

then simmered them in a gravy sauce,” [Jude Escoffier-Politte, Brown

Holler]

“My pawpaw French relatives in Richwoods made bacou. It was made with different kinds of wild game: deer, rabbit, squirrel, groundhog, rolled in flour and browned in a skillet, then stewed in a pot with onion and vegetables. Mom said it came down from Canada.”

[Le roy Beque t t e , DeSo to ]

Les Animaux-Domestic AnimalsIn the days before stock laws, cattle

and hogs roamed free in the woods. They ate native plant and pasture and were fattened up with corn. Hogs were also raised in 16 by 16 foot log pens, the same size as most log rooms. Pork was a fa-vorite of the Creoles, probably because it was the easiest meat to raise and preserve in the days before refrigeration. Tame rabbit, chickens, guinea fowl and some-times duck and geese were raised as well.

“They used to nail a gooses feet to a board so he couldn’t walk around and would fatten up quick. Those old people loved the foué (foi). They made a pâté out of it. Foué is how they said liver.” [Eli Robart, Fountain Farm]

La Boucher ie -Butcher ingButchering was done in the fall so the

meat wouldn’t spoil and was group effort. “One year dad raised pigs and we

had salt meat and sausage. We didn’t have a freezer to keep it so he salted it down to preserve it.” [Natalie Villmer, Old Mines]

“They used to catch the hog blood in a pail and make boudin with it. They would clean the intestines, turn them in-side out, then pour the blood mixed with spices into them. After it was cooked, we sliced it like meat. It says in the Old Tes-tament we’re not supposed to eat blood, but we did it anyway. We’re not living under the Old Testament anymore.”

[ J o s e p h T o u d -e n P o r t e l l , B o t t o m D i g g i n s ]

ÉTÉ/SUMMER(Pawpaw-French Cooking continued from page 32)


Kent Beaulne at le four a pain

ning it, the hairs were singed off over a fire after they were gutted. My first memory of possum, the hunters were a psit brin soule, and had singed the hairs too long, burning the meat. The cook refused to bring it in her house.

Deer and turkey were nearly extinct in the Ozarks in the first half of the 20th century, but due to efforts of the MO Con-servation in the 1930s, they have returned to the Pawpaws menu. Deer are now as thick as ticks in the woods and are a staple.

W h e n I w a s f i v e o r s o , I spent some time with my grand-mere Torie Bone at Shibboleth.

She lived in a century old log house. There were still dozens in the area built of rough logs and plastered with bouzillage and white washed inside and out. We ate a good breakfast of farm eggs cooked in lard, sausage from her hogs, gravy, and of course les gateaux with homemade blackberry jelly. After breakfast we went to the wood pile to pack a couple days wood on the porch. “While were down here I need to check my rabbit boxes” “Oh boy a bunny rabbit I thought.” She pulled out a cute rabbit by its back legs from a box trap and then smacked it in the head with a stick of wood. “Well here’s supper she said. Let’s skin it.” It was just meat to her. Ah bien, my first expe-

34

Le Forum

Les andoi l le was another type of sausage made from the hog.

“Lean pieces of meat were ground up, made into patties and kept in lard. They wouldn’t spoil that way, you know” [Ann Robart-Pratt, Old Mines]

I bought some at a mar-ket once but it was terrible. Not t h e s a m e a s t h e h o m e m a d e .

One wouldn’t think there was enough meat on the head for the trouble, but there is. C’est vaux la peine. If the head is boiled the meat falls of the skull and can be easily salvaged. It is pulled apart into small pieces, mixed with spices and put in a cake pan until it sets up. It’s cut into squares and served like fudge. It is rich. Good head cheese doesn’t include the fat, gristle or snout which is often included in the store bought crap. The best I have eaten was made by Max Villmer and Benny The-beau. Some folks ate the brains, which looks like scrambled eggs when cooked.

“My dad would butcher a hog. The only thing that we didn’t save from it was the squeal. This was a big day as all the neighbors and family brought their hogs to help one another supply their winter’s meat. Again due to elec-tricity they had a special building… where he smoked meat hung from the rafters. They dipped the hog in hot water and scraped off the hairs. We helped Mom cut these into small pieces;

are most evident. Two centuries after the Louisiana Purchase there are even a few native francophones who learned English after starting school. But it is the food, knowing no language barrier that the descendants of the colonists have steadfastly refused to abandon.

Early census records of the French, then Spanish, and later Amer-ican governments list inhabitants as

Creoles; born in Upper Lou-isiana, descendants of French and or Spanish, mixed Indian descent.

Canadians; born in CanadaFrench; born in FranceSpanish, born in SpainA m e r i c a i n ; b o r n i n t h e

Br i t i sh then Amer ican s ta tes .

(Pawpaw-French Cooking continued from page 33)

then she would render them in a large black pot over fire outside until they were brown. The drippins were called lard, which was used to fry foods.”

[Bernadette Bequette, Old Mines]There was meat under the skin

which cooked up into cracklings after the lard separated. The locals called them les gortons. This isn’t the puffed up skin, craclings found in stores, non.

Les Herbes Sauvage – Wild Greens

Meals changed with the seasons. In the spring, folks couldn’t wait to get in the woods and pick greens. After a winter of no fresh greens the wild on-ions, les oignonere, were the first ones to come up. It’s the tops they collected which they cooked scrambled eggs. There were a dozen other greens that could be eaten as well. Polk is one of the latest ones you can eat. It gets tough and bitter with the summer heat. All greens were boiled with a little pork for flavor.

Then there was les mouris. The elusive Ozark morrels. One never reveals their mushroom spot. These fungi are battered and fried, C’est si bon.

At the start of the 21st century, el-ements of French culture survive in Old Upper Louisiana settlements of Indiana, Illinois and Missouri. But it is in north-ern Washington County Missouri, in the villages and voisinages around Rich-woods, Old Mines and Potosi that they

Mandy Eckhoff, making homi-ny, du gru at a festival.

Les Chanteurs Acadiens: 25 years of promoting St. John Valley's unique culture

MUSIC/MUSIQUE

ST. JOHN VALLEY - Les Chanteurs Acadiens is celebrating 25 years of promoting St. John Valley heritage and culture with a new 15-song CD called, "25e anniversaire."

The re a r e 15 songs on the CD, seven of them recorded l ive.

Seven of the songs are original compositions about life in the Valley, both past and present: "Ramasser des patates," "Filles de Quimby," "Chanson des patois," "I will not speak French in school," "Y a pu grand monde," "J'm'ennui de che' nous," and another original song introduced at UMFK's Fiddlers Jamo-boree, called, "La vie d'un habitant." All these songs are written by Don Levesque.

Another favorite, "Mon peti t coin de pays," is composed by former Chanteurs Acadiens member Joyce Co-meau-Crosby, formerly of Ste-Agathe.

Of course, traditional favorites are also included: "Hommage a Edward Prizeau," "Quand le soleil dit bonjour aux montagnes," which is one of the seven live performances and features an impromptu sing-along, "Un acadien errant," (some of you might know this song better as "Un canadien errant" but Les Chanteurs Acadians have changed one word to make it more appropriate to the Valley), "La grace du ciel," which is a beautiful French version of "Amazing Grace," "Partons la mer est belle/Evangeline,"

"Waltz Westphalia," "Good night/Bonsoir."The CD is almost 100% homemade.

That is, it was entirely recorded on a lap-top either during various performances throughout the Valley or recorded live at Le Centre Mikesell in Madawaska while the musicians sat around the computer.

The cover and back photos are by friends and the design was done by Levesque on his home computer.

O n l y t h e p r i n t i n g , t r i m -ming and folding of the covers was done professionally in the Valley.

The number of singers and mu-sicians comprising Les Chanteurs Aca-


35

BOOKS/LIVRES...Madawaska Historical Society

Publications Inventory at Public Library

CARON Family Genealogy Book (2006) (Vol.I, Vol. II, Vol. III, Scrapbook)CHASSE Family Reunion Book (1995) (1)CORRIVEAU Genealogy & Photo Album (1)CYR LEGACY DAIGLE Genealogy Book Miville-DESCHENES Genealogy (2000) (Vol. I, Vol. II, Supplement, Picture Book)Descendants of Antoine DIONNE (2005)DUFOUR Family Reunion Booklet (1983)ERNIE (CHASSE)LAGACE Family (2007) (Genealogy (1), Photo Album (2))LAVERTU Family (1)LEVESQUE Descendants (1996) Vol. I, Vol. 2LIZOTTE Family (1987) (1)MICHAUD Family (Picture Book, Ad Book)NADEAU Family Genealogy Book (1998) (Thinner Book, Thicker Book, Ad Booklets)OUELLETTE Genealogy Book (1988) Vol. I, Vol. II, Vol. IIIPARENT Genealogy & Photo Album (1)PELLETIER Genealogy Book (1986) (2)PELLETIER Heritage PICARD Family (2001) (1)PLOURDE Family (1987) ROY Family Genealogy/Family Album (1994)

Visit us at [email protected] ÉTÉ/SUMMER

(Vol. I (1), Vol. II, Suppl. To Vol. II, (1)SIROIS-DUPLESSIS Family (1991) (2)THIBODEAU Genealogy (1984)

MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATIONS

ACADIAN REDEMPTION (Warren A. Perrin)Les BELLES HISTOIRES de COUVENT de STE. AGATHE (Marc Chasse)DUBE FAMILY REUNION ADVERTISEMENT BOOKLET (1997)EVANGELINE (Henry Wadworth Longfellow)GRAND ISLE HOMECOMING BOOKS 1993 (1); 1994 (2)The HISTORY OF MADAWASKA (Thomas Albert)HOW THE ACADIANS CAME to MAINE (Lawrence A. Violette)The LAND in BETWEEN (Craig; Dagenais; Ornstein; Dubay)MADAWASKA – A CHAPTER in MAINE-NEW BRUNSWICK RELATIONSMADAWASKA CENTENNIAL 1869-1969PRUDENT MERCURE PAPERS (Roger Paradis)READING, ‘RITING & RETIREMENT (Faye O’Leary Hafford)REUNION FAMILIES’ COOKBOOK- Volume IIREUNION FAMILIES ‘ COOKBOOK FAVORITE RECIPES (1)The ROAD to Canada (Gary Campbell) (2)

Contact: Lois Muller Email: [email protected] Historical Society President

diens has varied greatly over the last 25 years. At one time there were eight mem-bers, the largest the group has ever been.

For the past few years, the group has consisted of Charles Stewart, a Van Buren native who resides in Fort Kent; Roger Dam-boise, a Connors native who also resides in Fort Kent; and Don Levesque, a Grand Isle native who resides in Saint-Basile, NB.

The 15-song CD sells for $1 a song and is available wherever and when-ever you see a member of the band.

For information on performances, see photos, or to preview songs, visit Les Chanteurs Acadiens on FaceBook.

Contact: Charles Stewart Don Levesque [email protected] [email protected] 249-2893 1-506-253-9035

Roger [email protected]

(Les Chanteurs Acadiens continued from page 34)

SAVE THE DATE...Josée Vachon will be performing at the Franco-American

Centre in Orono on October 12, 2:00 p.m. Free! Donations Accepted!

Le Forum

BOOKS/LIVRES... L’Étranger Extraterrestre by Norman Beaupré

Does the extraterrestrial exist or not? The novel L’Étranger Extraterres-tre/The Extraterrestrial Stranger written in French by local author Norman Beaupré who writes both in French and English, poses that question and attempts to answer it in a way so as to go beyond the intellect and the rational. It’s not a sci-fi novel but one that touch-es upon many dimensions of human knowledge that often surpasses the ordinary and even the terrestrial such

as, philosophy, cosmology, astronomy, theology and myth among others. It’s a work that fathoms the discernment of spiritual life in all of the Great Cre-ator’s beings, terrestrial as well as ex-traterrestrial. It’s the story of the young Pascal who meets serendipitously an extraterrestrial who offers him a range of knowledge concerning galaxies, nebulae and stars. The extraterrestrial named Andraiü comes from the be-yond, a star evolved from a nebula. He declares Pascal a prophet and gives him his mission on earth. In Pascal’s quest for the Absolute in both truths and values, the young man constantly struggles with his mission which brings him, among many avenues, to a clair-voyant, the Sage of Ephata, to a monas-tery called La-Pierre-Qui-Moud, to an extraordinary artist called Cassandra, to Marjolaine the Healer who is involved with the poor and the marginalized and with Théophile, an artist afflicted with dementia who has extraordinary mo-ments of lucidity. Finally, the prophet of the Extraterrestrial Stranger accom-

plishes his mission in such a way that reveals turning points in the events that lead up to the climax of the novel. It’s a work that calls itself prophetic and extraterrestrial in its weaving of a story that is filled with stimulating ideas and probing dialogues that will strike a chord in all readers and especially in the reader of extraterrestrial adventures. Visionary and extraordinarily written. Published by Llumina Press in Coral Springs, Florida. This is Beaupré’s 18th work and he is already doing research on his next novel, a work dealing with the artistic life of the artist who painted animals, ROSA BONHEUR. In the meantime, he is writing a long dialogue in the Franco-American dialect entitled, “Marie-Quat-Poches et Sarah Foshay.”

http://www.nrbeaupre.com/writings.html

Norman R. Beaupré14 Gertrude Avenue, Biddeford, Maine 04005(207) [email protected] (French and English)

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"The One-Way Bridge"by Cathie Pelletier

http://cathiepelletier.com

Cathie Pelletier’s first novel in over six years, The One-Way Bridge shows Cathie at her best as she draws readers back to the beloved town of Mattagash—a seemingly quiet New England outpost at the end of the road in Northern Maine. Mattagash, however, is anything but tranquil. While its cit-izens bicker publicly over small-town theft or their neighbors’ offensive mail-boxes, they privately struggle through deeper life issues of scandal, loss, failed ambitions and the scars of war.

CATHIE PELLETIER was born

and raised on the banks of the St. John River in Northern Maine. She is the author of 9 novels, including The Funeral Makers (a New York Times

Book Review Notable Book), The Weight of Winter (winner of the New England Book Award), and Running the Bulls (winner of the Paterson Prize for Fiction). The One-Way Bridge is her first novel in six years, and she is currently working on her next.

ÉTÉ/SUMMER

Norman R. Beaupré14 Gertrude Avenue, Biddeford, Maine 04005(207) [email protected] (French and English)

BOOKS/LIVRES...

http://www.clairemacdonald.ca/adventure-in-acadia/

Adventure in AcadiaA Story of Friendship

Illustrated by Claire MacDonald &

Written by Robert MacDonald

Contact:Lois Muller

Madawaska Historical Society President

[email protected]

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Le ForumFrom Annual Report for the University of Maine

Franco American CentreThe University of Maine’s Franco American Centre addresses Maine’s Franco American reality (between

30% and 35% of Maine’s population) both on campus and beyond. Its work includes community engagement, research, and partnership with the University’s Franco American Studies Program and other academic programs like the University of Maine Humanities Initiative.

Significant achievements over the last academic year include:

• publication of LE FORUM;

• fundraising connected with the community networks developed through LE FORUM;

• the continuing development of Franco American Archives collection, a digital oral history library;

• continuing development of a network of community volunteers;

• genealogical service;

• continuing development of a digital Franco American Library, its unique comprehensive bib liographic resource to support academic, community, and digital scholarship;

• course development in collaboration with Franco American Studies;

• initiation of and partnership in the Maine’s Bridge Year Initiative;

• participation and staff support for Maine’s Legislative Task Force on Franco Americans;

• coordination, in collaboration with Command Research, of a unique demographic study of Franco Americans in Maine;

• initiation of the Franco American Centre Occasional Papers and publication of the first issue: “Contemporary Attitudes of Maine’s Franco Americans,” No. 1, Spring 2012 (Orono: Franco American Centre Publications);

• collaboration with the Cianbro Corporation in support of the East/West Corridor initiative;

• collaboration with Opportunity Maine in support of Maine’s Educational Opportunity Tax Credit initiative;

• capacity building—working with members of the legislature, political and business leaders to create a political/economic network to support and protect the Franco American Centre and its mission both on campus and in the state.

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ÉTÉ/SUMMER

March 12, 2013, Mardi Gras

Franco-American Centre EventsArts & Crafts at the Franco-American Centre: Every Tuesday, volunteers showing their craftsknitting, rug hooking, etc.

May 20 -22, 2013, Franco-American Gathering

June 11, 2013: Franco-American Performance, Senior Center, Bangor

June 23, 2013: Visit to the beautiful St. John Valley, Tante Blanche Museum, Musée Culturel du Mont-Carmel, Acadian Village

Without your continued financial donations none of these pro-grams would be possible. We thank you for your continued support!

THE FRANCO AMERICAN CENTREOF THE

UNIVERSITY OF MAINEThe University of Maine Office of Franco American Affairs

was founded in 1972 by Franco American students and community volunteers. It subsequently became the Franco American Centre.

From the onset, its purpose has been to introduce and inte-grate the Maine and Regional Franco American Fact in post-sec-ondary academe and in particular the University of Maine.

Given the quasi total absence of a base of knowledge within the University about this nearly one-half of the population of the State of Maine, this effort has sought to develop ways and means of making this population, its identity, its contributions and its history visible on and off campus through seminars, workshops, conferences and media efforts — print and electronic.

The results sought have been the redressing of historical neglect and ignorance by returning to Franco Americans their his-tory, their language and access to full and healthy self realizations. Further, changes within the University’s working, in its structure and curriculum are sought in order that those who follow may experience cultural equity, have access to a culturally authentic base of knowledge dealing with French American identity and the contribution of this ethnic group to this society.

MISSION • To be an advocate of the Franco-American Fact at the

University of Maine, in the State of Maine and in the region, and

• To provide vehicles for the effective and cognitive expression of a collective, authentic, diversified and effective voice for Franco-Americans, and

• To stimulate the development of academic and non-academic program offerings at the University of Maine and in the state relevant to the history and life experience of this ethnic group and

• To assist and support Franco-Americans in the actual-ization of their language and culture in the advancement of careers, personal growth and their creative contribution to society, and

• To assist and provide support in the creation and imple-mentation of a concept of pluralism which values, validates and reflects affectively and cognitively the Multicultural Fact in Maine and elsewhere in North America, and

• To assist in the generation and dissemination of knowl-edge about a major Maine resource — the rich cu l tu ra l and language diversity of its people.

LE CENTRE FRANCO AMÉRICAlN DEl’UNIVERSITÉ DU MAINE

Le Bureau des Affaires franco-américains de l’Université du Maine fut fondé en 1972 par des étudiants et des bénévoles de la communauté franco-américaine. Cela devint par conséquent le Centre Franco-Américain.

Dès le départ, son but fut d’introduire et d’intégrer le Fait Franco-Américain du Maine et de la Région dans la formation académique post-secondaire et en particulier à l’Université du Maine.

Étant donné l’absence presque totale d’une base de connais-sance à l’intérieur même de l’Université, le Centre Franco-Améri-cain s’efforce d’essayer de développer des moyens pour rendre cette population, son identité, ses contributions et son histoire visible sur et en-dehors du campus à travers des séminaires, des ateliers, des conférences et des efforts médiatiques — imprimé et électronique.

Le résultat espéré est le redressement de la négligence et de l’ignorance historique en retournant aux Franco-Américains leur histoire, leur langue et l’accès à un accomplissement personnel sain et complet. De plus, des changements à l’intérieur de l’académie, dans sa structure et son curriculum sont nécessaires afin que ceux qui nous suivent puisse vivre l’expérience d’une justice culturelle, avoir accès à une base de connaissances culturellement authentique qui miroite l’identité et la contribution de ce groupe ethnique à la société.

OBJECTIFS: 1 – D’être l’avocat du Fait Franco-Américain à l’Université du Maine, dans l’État du Maine et dans la région.

2 – D’offrir des véhicules d’expression affective et cognitive d’une voix franco-américaine effective, collective, authentique et diversifiée.

3 – De stimuler le développement des offres de programmes académiques et non-académiques à l’Université du Maine et dans l’État du Maine, relatant l’histoire et l’expérience de la vie de ce groupe ethnique.

4 – D’assister et de supporter les Franco-Américains dans l’actualisation de leur langue et de leur culture dans l’avancement de leurs carrières, de l’accomplissement de leur personne et de leur contribution créative à la société.

5 – D’assister et d’offrir du support dans la création et l’implémentation d’un concept de pluralisme qui value, valide et reflète effectivement et cognitivement le fait dans le Maine et ail-leurs en Amérique du Nord.

6 – D’assister dans la création et la publication de la con-naissance à propos d’une ressource importante du Maine — la riche diversité

Université du MaineLe FORUMCentre Franco-AméricainOrono, ME 04469-5719États-Unis

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